Miguel Oliveira

Five-time MotoGP race winner Miguel Oliveira moves to the new Pramac Yamaha project for 2025.

Miguel Oliveira - Route to MotoGP

A shining youth rider at national level in Mini GPs, Oliveira first grabbed international attention with victories in the Red Bull Rookies Cup at Donington Park and Assen in 2008 aged 13. A maiden CEV 125cc campaign saw him finish in third place a year later before ending runner-up in both the CEV and European 125GP classes in 2010.

That led to his 125cc debut at world level with a partial campaign in which he produced six top-ten results for Andalucia Banca Civica as well as continuing to star in CEV.

2012 saw Oliveira make a full-time switch to the newly-branded Moto3 world championship in which he claimed a maiden podium at round five with third place in Barcelona. A second rostrum arrived at the penultimate round at Phillip Island with second place to see the Portuguese rider grab eight place in the standings.

Oliveira’s efforts attracted Mahindra where he spent two seasons fighting with ultimately uncompetitive machinery but was still able to grab two podiums and a maiden pole position.

In 2015, a move to Red Bull KTM saw him launch a Moto3 title challenge against Danny Kent which came up just short ending the year runner-up. It allowed him to move up to Moto2 with Leopard Racing, joining former title rival Danny Kent at the team, but it proved a tricky maiden campaign in the intermediate class with just three top-ten finishes.

Oliveira’s year was also hampered by a broken collarbone suffered at Aragon after being hit by Franco Morbidelli during Friday practice. It meant the Portuguese missed four rounds in total but did return for the 2016 finale in Valencia taking 13^th place.

Once again Oliveira made a switch to the Red Bull KTM Ajo squad and history repeated itself as he set-up a title challenge but this time in Moto2. In 2017 a maiden podium and pole position arrived in Argentina and he maintained his front-running pace throughout the year with five additional podiums before a breakthrough victory at Phillip Island which triggered a hat-trick of victories to end the year in third place in the standings.

Oliveira maintained his momentum into 2018 with Red Bull KTM Ajo, dovetailing his racing with his dentistry studies, as he claimed three wins and nine rostrums to end the year closest title challenger to the dominant Francesco Bagnaia.

Miguel Oliveira in MotoGP

Tech3 KTM (2019-2020)

Oliveira moved up to MotoGP in 2019 as part of the new-look Tech3 KTM squad, making history with a brilliant last corner victory over Jack Miller and Pol Espargaro in Austria to claim the first premier-class win for the French team after 20-years of trying.

Later confirmed as moving to the factory team in place of the departing Pol Espargaro, with whom Oliveira clashed on track in 2020, the Portuguese then signed off his brief but spectacular Tech3 career with a perfect pole, fastest lap and victory in his home Portimao finale.

Red Bull KTM (2021-2022)

With Binder also winning a race for the factory team in 2020, KTM had high hopes of a title challenge for 2021.

But the Austrian manufacturer had lost concessions due to its 2020 success and the RC16 lost relative ground to its rivals over the winter. 

Oliveira hadn't even cracked the top ten before suddenly taking a revised chassis and fuel to second pace in Mugello (round 6). Victory next time in Catalunya and then another podium in Germany seemed to confirm KTM had corrected its issues.

Oliveira was now tipped as a potential title contender, yet would barely score points during a nightmare second half of the year.

It began badly with an awkward practice fall in Austria but it soon became clear that the RC16's earlier performance issues were also far from solved. 

Nonetheless, while Oliveira's results evaporated over the second half of the championship, team-mate Binder stepped up as top KTM in the last nine races, consistency taking the South African to sixth overall while Oliveira sank to 14th place.

As such, few riders were hoping to hit the reset button more than Oliveira for the start of 2022.

Unfortunately, the 'spiky' nature of Oliveira's results continued, perfectly illustrated by a wet victory in round two at Mandalika being preceded by a DNF in Qatar and 13th next time in Argentina.

Oliveira added another wet win later in the season at Buriram, making him the only RC16 rider to stand on the top step, but couldn't beat fifth in the dry and finished tenth in the world championship (four places behind Binder).

RNF/Trackhouse Aprilia (2023-2024)

With Jack Miller signed in his place, Oliveira rejected KTM's offer of a return to Tech3 to headline the new GASGAS branding and switched to the fast-improving Aprilia RS-GP (which won its first race in 2022) via a seat at the satellite RNF team.

Oliveira turned heads from his first test on the 2022-spec RS-GP, then was in contention for a dream home podium on his Aprilia debut when he was brutally taken out by Marc Marquez in Portimao.

Ligament damage forced his absence from Argentina, before a top five at COTA. Then came another wipe-out, this time when Fabio Quartararo lost control on lap one in Jerez. The resulting shoulder injuries took until the summer break to fully heal.

Almost within touching distance of a podium at Silverstone, Oliveira’s year finished as it had started, with injury. This time he was the instigator, clipping the back of Aleix Espargaro in the Qatar Sprint and suffering a broken shoulder blade.

While Oliveira was sidelined, CryptoDATA RNF morphed into Trackhouse, whose new American honours promptly secured factory-spec RS-GPs for the Portuguese in 2024.

Podiums looked a realistic goal for Oliveira. However, while Maverick Vinales suffered similar initial struggles on the 2024 Aprilia, the Portuguese took much longer to threaten the rostrum.

Oliveira’s highlight came at Sachsenring where, after finishing no higher than eighth in the previous rounds, the five-time KTM winner was fastest in final practice, qualified on the front row and hounded Jorge Martin for victory in the Sprint.

Although the Ducatis stretched away on the Sunday, Oliveira was again best of the rest. But it was back down to earth at Silverstone and increasingly obvious Oliveira was looking elsewhere for 2025.

Oliveira’s place at the new Pramac Yamaha project was officially confirmed in September. He then missed five rounds after being injured when his traction control failed in practice at Mandalika, before returning for an RS-GP farewell at the Valencia finale. 

Oliveira was 15th in the world championship, just one place better than the previous year.