Luke tops first WorldSSP session – focused on Jerez after double DNF in Estoril

Luke Power’s debut at the Circuito do Estoril in Portugal was impressive – the Aussie teenager topping his first ever world championship session on Saturday morning – but he leaves Portugal empty handed, deserving more!

After running strongly in Friday morning’s Free Practice, the #68 Motozoo ME AIR MV Agusta rider ended the session eighth overall giving much optimism for the weekend ahead.

Caught out by the rain, along with half the grid in Superpole Luke was forced to start from P22 in Saturday’s opening encounter – an eighteen-lap race that was cut short after he was hit on the opening lap by several riders. The contact damaged the bike forcing a retirement on safety grounds.

Bad luck aside Luke bounced back with a solid warm up on Sunday morning before crashing on the opening lap of race two after another aggressive move from a rival left him with nowhere to go.

There’s little time to rest for Luke who is heading to Jerez in Spain for the season finale this coming weekend.

Luke Power:

“Overall a positive yet unsatisfying weekend. I started well on Friday finishing eighth overall in wet conditions despite a small crash mid-way through the session. Confident going into qualifying our strategy was compromised by the unpredictable weather which left me P22 on the grid. Saturday morning warm up was again wet but topping my first world championship session was incredible and a great start to the day. Unfortunately, the race wasn’t meant to be. After being hit by numerous riders my fairing was broken resulting in me being forced to stop on safety grounds. Nevertheless, I was confident of a strong Sunday. I found a much better feeling with the bike in the warm up on Sunday morning and was looking forward to fighting for points in race two. However, after being tagged in the second corner, I went down which ended my race pretty much before it had begun. This is not the first time that my race has been ruined by other riders’ careless manoeuvres, and for both my races in Estoril to be over so early is both frustrating and annoying. My team and I will regroup and come out fighting to end the year in style in Spain.”