Fourth for Marcos Ramirez and 21st for Rory Skinner in the #ValenciaGP

The OnlyFans American Racing Team narrowly missed out on their second podium of the season as Marcos Ramirez finished the Valencia GP in fourth whilst Rory Skinner took 21st in the final race of the year.
It was a chilly start to proceedings, but Marcos took to the track to slot into seventh early in Practice One before improving by two-tenths in the afternoon to finish overall seventh.

The Spaniard hit the ground running on Saturday as he lay down the gauntlet early doors to finish final practice in second place before storming to a fantastic third to line up on the front row for the first time in his Moto2 career.

As the lights went out, Marcos made a swift getaway to maintain third place ahead of the hard-charging Jake Dixon and Alonso Lopez behind.

With the laps ticking down, Lopez began breathing down Marcos’ neck before barging past with six laps remaining, but the Spaniard kept pace with Lopez ahead, sticking to his tail to finish only two-hundredths off a podium place.

Getting to grips with the Valencian track, Rory found his feet in the opening session before improving his previous time by three-tenths to round of Friday in 26th.

Knocking a further half a second off his time in final practice, Rory faced another stereotypically tight Moto2 Q1 session as he missed out on a place in Q2 by seven-tenths to line up 26th on the grid.

Making a stellar start to the race, Rory avoided the opening lap chaos to move into 20th place but an early issue dropped him into 22nd.

Keeping his head down and his powder dry, the Scot chipped away at the gap between himself and the pack ahead before sweeping by Taiga Hada to take 21st and the chequered flag on his 2023 season.

Marcos Ramirez #24 – 4th
Overall, I’m really happy about the weekend. It’s a shame to miss out on the podium by 0.021 seconds but I’m happy to finish the season like this, I hope we can take this into next year as we’re now really confident and I’m super happy with the team. Now it’s time to focus on training in the winter to be completely ready for next year.

Rory Skinner #33 – 21st
Valencia weekend was ok. I felt like I rode quite well over the course of the weekend; I struggled a bit with rear grip in the race and some of the sessions but I’m happy to have brought it home in the last race of the year and I felt like I rode a good race, having some battles. I made a small mistake on lap 3 or 4 which set me back a bit but it’s the end of an era for now. Thanks to the American Racing Team for 2023.