Miguel Oliveira's injury update as he returns from wrist problem

This weekend’s Barcelona MotoGP will see Miguel Oliveira return to racing for his last race with the Trackhouse Aprilia team, having missed all of the flyaway races through injury.

Oliveira injured his wrist in a practice crash during the Indonesian Grand Prix at the end of September, in the first of the five consecutive overseas races.

Returning for this weekend, the Portuguese rider says he is almost back to full fitness, but admits it’s hard to tell with certainty until he’s been on the RS-GP.

“[I’m] happy to be back for sure,” Oliveira said ahead of this weekend’s Solidarity Grand Prix of Barcelona.

“Physically, I would say a good 90 per cent, but until you really put your hands on the bike you can’t tell for sure, but relatively okay.”

Oliveira’s injury involved some complications that weren’t realised immediately.

“It was tricky,” he said. “I discovered later that it could be even trickier because I didn’t brake any bones of my hand, my fracture was like a compressive fracture and it did some damage to the cubital bone and also the cartilage.

“So, it was not easy to do a good, pain-free recovery. But the tolerance now is much higher, so that’s why I said ‘Okay, let’s just try it out’.”

Will the Trackhouse Aprilia rider be able to complete his final race weekend for the American-owned team?

“I hope so,” he said. “I mean, until you go on the MotoGP bike you can’t really tell. Also, I’ve missed riding these last months, so I’m not in the best shape possible to do the weekend.

“When you’re fit it’s difficult, so when you’re injured it’s even harder.”

The end of Oliveira’s time with the Trackhouse team opens the way for him to move to the Pramac team, for which he will test on Tuesday with the Yamaha YZR-M1.

“I don’t know how much I can expect just from Tuesday testing because it’s just one day,” Oliveira said.

“I’m looking very much to the future, but due to the injury I’m also looking forward to the weekend, just in general. So I just hope to be fit enough to ride throughout all sessions, all races, just to get back the feeling and the speed.”