Sixteen year old Gqeberha motorcycle ace Ruche’ Moodley had the motorcycle world on the edge of their seats while taking part in the Moto3 Junior World Championship at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli in Italy on Sunday.
It wasn’t long into race 1 that Moodley announced his arrival on the big stage when he took the lead a couple of times in this ultra-competitive class and then with just 3 laps left in the race he made a late dive for the lead and unfortunately made contact with the leader Rico Salmela, a move that ended the race for both of them as they slid into the gravel traps.
For this transgression Moodley was given a long lap penalty which he had to serve in race two. He started on the front row of the grid once again in third position, and as in race 1 Moodley immediately showed his intent by running at the front of the field, but disaster struck when he decided to serve his long-lap penalty, Salmela fell while negotiating the high speed corner and slid into Moodley once again ending both of their races.
Moodley had the following to say “the unpredictability of Motorsport never fails to amaze! Zero points this weekend after a strong P3 in qualifying. In Race 1, I made a mistake while challenging for the lead and collided with Rico Salmela #27, apologies to him and his team. Interestingly, in Race 2, while I was serving the long lap penalty for the incident, he crashed and took me out. Like what are the chances? Overall it was a positive weekend and the potential is there to fight up front.”
Moodley’s Finetwork MIR teammate, Spaniard Adrian Cruces had a fantastic weekend with a fifth place finish in race 1 which he then followed up with his first podium finish in the championship taking second place in race 2.
The racing action for Moodley moves to Jerez in Spain this weekend for the opening round of the 2024 Red Bull Rookies Cup where he will line up alongside 25 other hopefuls as they seek to impress the talent scouts looking for the next big name in MotoGP racing. The series takes the youngsters around some of the classic Grand Prix Circuits in Europe before ending at Misano in September and all of the riders are on identical Moto3 KTM RC 250R 4-stroke motorcycles that weigh 82 kg’s and are limited to 13500 rpm.
This will be Moodley’s third season in Rookie Cup and the moment he turns seventeen he’ll be hoping that the offers for a full Moto3 ride will start pouring in as this series has been the breeding ground of the likes of current MotoGP riders Johan Zarco, Miguel Oliveira, Joan Mir, Brad Binder, Enea Bastianini and Jorge Martin to name a few.