Teenager Oliveira gets first ever pole for Mahindra in Moto3

Portuguese teenager Miguel Oliveira secured his and Team Mahindra’s first ever pole position for the Dutch Grand Prix in the Moto 3 category of the MotoGP championship. Mahindra had claimed a pole position during the two-stroke years, when Danny Webb put the 125cc machine in first position in wet qualifying at Valencia in 2011. In windy and cool conditions with the ever-present threat of rain, Oliveira put in a fast lap early on to put his name at the top of the charts. [caption id=“attachment_914583” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Portuguese teenager Miguel Oliveira secured his and Team Mahindra’s first ever pole position.[/caption] It stayed dry, and with ten minutes remaining, the usual stars moved forward, pushing the Mahindra to fifth position.  However Oliveira went out again and produced a blazing last run that put him back on the top. Later in the session another rider equalled his time but nobody could beat it, and Oliveira takes the prime starting position for the first time in his career. His previous best was when he put the Mahindra in second position at Le Mans earlier this year. Team-mate Efrén Vázquez qualified 17th, in the thick of very close times. The Spaniard is still nursing painful collarbone injuries from the last race that were aggravated by a small spill in the morning free practice. “Yesterday we had some ideas of how to change the setting of the machine for better handling and direction changes, but this morning conditions were very bad so there was no chance to verify them. In the afternoon however, they seemed to work. “It was a good qualifying, and I think we deserved this first pole. The bike is performing very well, with no weak areas. Tomorrow’s race will be very difficult, you never know what can happen in big groups of riders, but I will give it everything I have,” Oliveira said. Vazquez said,“After the accident this morning it was a difficult qualifying. I had a little bit of pain and I was a little bit nervous. It was windy and the track surface was very cold. I pushed hard in the first laps and for a while I was third, thinking it might rain. Then I came in and made some changes that turned out to be not perfect. And at the end I was alone, with no group to follow and take a slipstream, and that makes a big difference here.” PTI