American Kristian Daniel Jr., who, along with his family, has made a huge commitment towards world championship motorcycle road racing by living in Europe, notched his best result so far in the second race of his second season competing in the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup on Sunday at the Circuito de Jerez-Ángel Nieto in Spain
The ever-determined 16-year-old came out of a fierce, four-rider battle that went right down to the final corner of the 14-lap race at Jerez with a third-place result marking his first-ever podium finish in Rookies Cup competition.
“Not too bad considering what happened yesterday,” Daniel Jr. said while recalling his DNF in Satiurday’s race one. “Honestly, it was super nice the whole race. I was just trying to make passes where I saw, like, ‘OK, this guy’s not gonna stay with the fast guys. I need to get past them.’
“I gotta say, I was a bit lucky with some of the crashes, you know, like, obviously Brian (Uriarte from Spain) went out, and the double long-lap (penalty) for Beñat (Fernandez, also from Spain), but I also made some smart passes, so I think I really deserved this one, and it was really good racing all the way until the end. Huge respect to Carter (Thompson from Australia, who was the race winner).”
Meanwhile, in Moto2, OnlyFans American Racing Team’s Joe Roberts finished 11th aboard his Kalex motorcycle at Jerez and earned five valuable points towards the season championship.
