Ant West recorded his ninth top ten finish from eleven rounds in th🍸is year's 250cc world championship, but was at a loss to explain quite why he has been unable to hook up a good result at Estoril.

The 22-year old Australian completed the 26-lap race in tenth place on his Zoppini Abruzzo Aprilia, but was some 43.112secs 𝐆behind the race-winning Repsol Telefonica MoviStar Aprilia of Spaniard Toni Eli𒈔as.

"I don't know if it's the track or what, but I've never really been special here," he sighed, "All weekend, I wasn't able to say if the༺ bike was good or not, or where the problems might be. We got a bit lost, I guess."

After qualifying eleventh, West lay tenth after the opening lap, but failed to make any further progress and spent the entire race alternating between tenth and eleventh, embroiled in a lengthy dice with Alex Debon. Having shaken off one Spaniard, however, he found himself chasing after Fonsi Nieto for ninth position over the closing laps, but fell 🔜0.065secs short at the line.

"In the race, I passed Debon, but he was able to stay with me and even got ahead again," West recalled, "I just didn't feel like I could push to the limit. It was only towards the end, when the tyres started to slide a bit, that I found I could push a bit harder. Nieto was slow at the end and I caught him up really fast. I just needed another corneಞr to get ahead. Over the line, I was just about to pull out of his slipstream to go by, but we'd already reached the flag."