West: I don't know what it is about Estoril...

Ant West recorded his ninth top ten finish from eleven rounds in this 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 behind the race-winning Repsol Telefonica MoviStar Aprilia of Spaniard Toni Elias.

"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 corner 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."