Red Bull KTM's Miguel Oliveira will race at home for the third time as a MotoGP rider, but the first in front of the Portimao crowd this weekend.

The Portuguese rider’s native debut yielded his second premier class victory, but with the pandemic in full swing, the gates remained closed as Autodromo Internacional do Algarve made its own first appearance on the MotoGP calendar. The 2020 finale saw Portugal host the Championship for the first time in eight years with a second run heralding this season’s opening European event, in April, again behind closed doors.

“It's like the first time really that we had the home GP, with the home GP feeling in the sense of having the crowd and feeling the warmth of the Portuguese crowd,” Oliveira said, after racing twice to a closed circuit.

“Definitely it's going to be interesting to see the grandstands,” he continued. “How it will be with all the colours and all the crowds. I'm hoping that they will enjoy MotoGP because it hasn't been here since 2012. Hopefully they will like the show, the machines and they'll have a good time and that hopefully someday we can celebrate something.

“For sure we get here to our home GP with a different kind of mentality,” the KTM rider explained, moving on to the specifics of his race weekend. "Beginning of the season we were having too many problems and the package was not really complete. The conditions were much different from what we had in November the previous season, so definitely we didn't have anything going our way.”

Oliveira qualified 10th but finished just outside of the points, in 16th, back in April but has returned to form in recent races. Misano saw him running fourth until the final lap, a late crash curtailing the celebrations.

“Now, towards the end of the championship, even if the result was not finished in Misano, at least I have a good connection back with the bike. Already in Texas I found a little bit more this connection and although if the result is not there, the feeling is there. So I think this is the most important thing to build a good weekend. For sure the key is to start tomorrow already with this feeling, give a good feedback to the team and finish this two last races of the season on a high.

“We have every reason to believe that we can achieve a good result,” the Portuguese rider confirmed. “Of course, it's always depending on a lot of things, but we know that the intention is there and we have every reason to believe on that direction. The opponents are going to be tough, of course. Everyone likes this track, everyone goes fast on it. So it's going to be about adapting better to every situation on the track and especially during the race, understanding what's a good line, and the normal racing routine on the weekend.”

Despite the difficult start, Oliveira’s season had been on the up before it was derailed by an accident on his return from the summer break which left him struggling.

“Yes, the crash was crucial because it was not an injury that was limiting in terms of me being able to ride but I was riding with limitations,” he explained. “So was definitely a very sensitive point because it was on the right wrist.

“The injury itself had no way of speeding up and by riding, of course, we slow a little bit the process of healing. It was more limited than I was expecting, the team was expecting and so I could not perform at my best. Even if the bike was not perfect in a lot of moments, many times with my riding I could overcome some of the difficulties we had but with the injury I was very blocked in this sense. It was a shame definitely, the feeling that remains is a lot of missed potential on the second half of the season.”