Mikey Lou Sanchez At Estoril

Texan Mikey Lou Sanchez finished 12th in the last race of the European Talent Cup at Estoril. Going into this last round, the schedule was cut short by one day and moved from Valencia to mid-week in Portugal due to the flooding in Spain and track availability.

Mikey was already behind, not racing this circuit earlier this year because of his age, and then to have one day of practice cut off made it even more challenging. He started off FP1 on Monday with two crashes back-to-back in wet conditions, putting him even further behind, but the weather cleared and he was able to complete FP2 in the afternoon with no issues.

Tuesday morning in the Practice session that determines who goes directly to Q2, Mikey unfortunately had another crash and had to go into Q1. During that Q1 session Mikey charged and finished in P2 going 1.3 seconds faster than Practice.

In Q2 Mikey finished P9 which put him 18th overall on the grid for the start of the race.
On Wednesday the weather was perfect for the final race of the year. Mikey had a decent start and managed that 18th position but made some mistakes and lost the group that was ahead of him. Once Mikey got going he was able to find a faster pace and kept pushing and eventually caught that group that he lost touch with earlier in the race. He was able to drop another 1.3 seconds off his qualifying time and finished the race in P12!

“In this first partial year of the European Talent Cup, has proven to be the most challenging class that I’ve been in so far since I started racing. Next year I plan to race a full season in the European Talent Cup. It ain’t going to be easy but I’m going to give it my best shot!” said Mikey.

Mikey Lou Sanchez is sponsored by Chick Fil A East Dallas, Texas Motorcycle Academy,
Fred & Maggie Beck, Harris Hill Raceway, Williams Custom Painting, San Marcos Iron Doors, HJC Helmets, Moto Liberty, Stax Moto, Pakosta Riders Factory, Shawn Knoche, Paul Stamper, Ben Fondu,Theo Bick, Mark Niemi, and Stephen Hagberg.

More, from a press release issued by Team MMR:

Rossi Moor @thesamurai92 finished P9 (in FIM JuniorGP Moto2). After a strange start our rookie gave it his all, climbing up to 9th position. Rossi had very little time to get to know the track, with one day less of free practice. In just 23 laps he managed to improve his lap time by 4 seconds. We are satisfied with the work of our American boy!