Rossi Attila Moore, the Hungarian-American talent from the Révész Racing Next Generation Riders Team, representing Team MMR, competed on May 4 in Estoril, Portugal, to kick off his campaign in the FIM JuniorGP Moto2 category.
The first two days of the race weekend—Thursday and Friday—were spent on free practice sessions. The weather was unpredictable, and on Saturday morning, the track was completely wet for practice. Due to less-than–ideal bike settings, Rossi crashed twice, significantly reducing his track time. However, for Q1, the team made completely new adjustments, including a revised gear ratio, which had already shown promise during start simulations.
Despite minor bruises and pain from the morning crashes, Rossi gave it his all and finished the first qualifying session in 5th place—just 0.078-second behind 4th place but losing the chance to advance to Q2. As a result, he started Sunday’s race from 19th on the grid.
By the time the first race in the morning gridded up, around 80% of the track had dried. While no rain fell, the surface hadn’t fully dried yet. A slick tire would have been the logical choice, but Rossi’s lead engineer decided otherwise, opting for wet tires — a decision that unfortunately didn’t pay off. One of the biggest losses of the race was Eric Fernandez, who was leading but crashed on the penultimate lap. Rossi fought hard for a points-scoring position, but due to the poor tire choice and bike performance, he finished 17th. The race was won by Spain’s Unai Orradre, ahead of Francesco Mongiardo and fellow Italian Alberto Surra.
In the afternoon’s second race, Rossi had a great start, and the bike responded better on the racing lines. He continuously overtook his rivals and eventually finished in 13th place, earning 3 valuable championship points.
There’s a lot of work ahead before the next race. The team knows there were mistakes with the bike settings and understands what needs to be done to ensure that by June 1 in Jerez, the camera will be focused on bike number 92 for the entire race.