After much speculation, Ana Carrasco has confirmed her move to Moto3™ ahead of the start of the 2022 season. The former Supersport300 Champion will join rookie David Muñoz at BOE SKX as the Spanish team prepare for their ninth year in the lightweight class.
???????? BREAKING NEWS????????
— Ana Carrasco (@AnaCarrasco_22) February 1, 2022
I can finally announce that this season I will be competing in the @MotoGP World Championship in the Moto3 class with @boemotorsports . I am very excited and looking forward to start this new adventure!???? pic.twitter.com/9co3K5VidF
Carrasco already has three seasons of World Championship experience under her belt, competing in Moto3™ from 2013 to 2015 before moving into the Supersport300 series in 2017. There, she became a World Champion in 2018 on Kawasaki machinery, while she picked up six wins and five further podiums across five seasons in the class.
Both Carrasco and Muñoz will be present at the first pre-season tests with the new BOE SKX bike, however, Gerard Riu will ride in the opening seven races of the season in place of Muñoz, with the 15-year-old Spaniard unable to compete until the Italian GP in Mugello.
Ana Carrasco: "Honestly, I am very happy with this opportunity, after five years in the World Supersport300 class, having managed to become World Champion in 2018 and fight for the title in the following years, I think this opportunity is the result of a lot of work well done in recent seasons and that it has come to me in one of the best moments of my career. Moreover, being able to return to Moto3 with this team, along with Carla Grau and Eliseo Escámez, my travelling companions, makes me especially excited as we had worked together in 2015 and I know first-hand that they are a very competitive team. I want to thank all the people who have made my return to the MotoGP paddock possible, the BOE SKX team, all the sponsors and, above all, Jose Angel Gutierrez Boe, for believing in me and betting on me for this season. I'm really looking forward to getting on the bike and finding out how I feel. I am confident that with good work during the preseason we can get to a good level for the first race".
David Muñoz: "I am very happy to race this season with BOE SKX. I am very excited and I want to thank Jose Angel Gutierrez Boe for the opportunity he has given me, now I have to take advantage of this opportunity and give my best. This year we are going to start the season late, we will have to take it easy, there will be circuits where we are better and others where we are worse, but we will always try to be as high as possible. Hopefully, we can fight for the front positions, but we must always go step by step, so little by little the results will come".
Gerard Riu: "I am very happy with the opportunity that BOE SKX gives me to do the first seven races of the season. Everything is new for me, it's happening very fast these last few days, but I'm very motivated. I hope to learn a lot, especially to progress race after race and to be fighting as high as possible".
Jose Angel Gutierrez Boe: "We are very motivated for this new season. 2022 is going to be a very exciting new challenge and we are ready to give everything on track with our new riders. Finally we can officially announce our line-up for this year in which we have made a clear sporting commitment to the future. Ana Carrasco has been the last incorporation and she returns to our structure as a much more mature rider and as a World Champion. In the case of David Muñoz, we have already confirmed his signing at the end of 2021, and he is a rider in whom we believe a lot, his potential is very high and he will give us great joy. Because of his age, he cannot take part in the first seven races, so he will be replaced by Gerard Riu, another young rider who we believe he can learn a lot with us. We are really looking forward to going out on track".