Rookie in the World Motorcycle Championship, Brazilian rider stood out in the equally new MSi in the first half of the 2022 season. Among compliments from journalists and fans, the 18-year-old shows enormous potential for the future and even dreams of a new chapter in the history of the national sport
Diogo Moreira started in 2022 to write a new chapter in the history of national motorcycling. At only 18 years of age, the Brazilian made his debut this year in the Moto3 World Championship, and his fast fit in the Moto3 class enchanted many people right away. And not only within Brazil.
In a country where the public is used to cheering for disciplines where the home-grown athletes are successful, motorcycling has not been a priority for a long time. Alexandre Barros, the greatest exponent of national motorcycling, last raced in the World Championship in 2007, and Eric Granado now races in MotoE, the World Cup with a much shorter calendar.
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In the more robust classes, someone who could seduce the fans was missing. Franco Morbidelli, who has a Brazilian mother's son, but was born in Rome, even succeeded, thanks to the good Portuguese he speaks and the flag he carries on half of his helmet. But that representation, that recognition of seeing an athlete as 'ours', only really came with Diogo.
Living outside of Brazil since 2017, Moreira now speaks Portuguese with a Spanish accent, but even when it came time to choose the number to debut in the championship, he thought of his roots and ties with the public. The #92 from the beginning of his career was replaced by #10, the most popular number in Brazil's number one sport, soccer. Moreira went to the World Cup willing to be the top scorer. And, so far, he has shown he has the talent to do it.
Hired by the new MSi team, Diogo competed in ten of the 11 races in the first half of 2022. The only absence was at the Catalunya GP, due to a fractured left wrist suffered in the Italian GP. The Brazilian tried, but was barred because of the pain.
In terms of classification, the best performance came at the Indonesian GP, the second round of the year, when he achieved second place. His bike, however, presented a problem and he managed to line up in position and did not even finish the race. However, he had two other appearances in the top-6: he was fourth on the grid in France and sixth in the Americas GP.
The Texas race, by the way, was one of the highlights of the #10 year-old. Diogo took the lead in Austin early on and was always among the leaders, but he crashed on the penultimate lap and could not complete the race.
In total, there were three retirements in the year - including, also, one in Italy, when he was leading the race -, but four appearances in the top-10. Diogo scored points in five of the ten races he competed, and today he is in 15th place in the classification, with 34 points. In the competition among rookies, the Brazilian is second, 14 points behind Dani Holgado, who leads with 48.
The performance, however, did not excite only the fans. Those who listen to the official MotoGP broadcast can see the excitement with which the team speaks about Diogo. And the same thing happens with journalists from other countries.
Moreira comes from a country with no tradition in the sport. His great advantage is that he went to school in the right place. Diogo studied motorcycling in Spain, at Monlau, where he trained Álex and Marc Márquez. The #10 competed in the World Junior Championship and the Red Bull Rookies Cup, two of the most important categories today. Diogo arrived prepared from the World Cup, ready to compete with drivers who had gone through schools as good as the ones he went through.
Now the Brazilian is reaping the fruits of his labor. But this is only the first step. Moto3 is the first step on a steep ladder, but the fact is that Moreira has started very well.
What he has shown so far indicates that he has the conditions to not only fight among the leaders, but to fly even higher. As it routinely happens in the category, the first podium has resisted in arriving, but when this frontier is crossed, the tendency is that it will become natural.
The Italian GP injury took some of Moreira's strength, but the vacation break came in handy. Physically recovered, the teammate of Ryusei Yamanaka has everything to be even better in the rest of 2022. Even if the calendar reserves him some unknown tracks. After all, this was not a problem at the beginning of the year.
MotoGP is now on vacation and will only resume on August 7 with the British GP at Silverstone.GRANDE PRÊMIO is following all the activities of the 2022 MotoGP World Championship.