British youngster Charlie Nesbitt finished the Estoril round of the Moto3 Junior World Championship in a fantastic seventh place, his best finish of the season to date.
The Swindon rider set a lap time in qualifying one that was only 0.582 from Raul Fernandez on pole position and was just two one-thousandths of a second slower than his more experienced team-mate Jeremy Alcoba.
In qualifying two the team riders went out together to try and improve their morning times. However, the wind had picked up so it was dangerous to push too hard. Instead, Nesbitt focused on his race pace.
Despite Nesbitt’s time being very close to the pole-sitter, the class is so competitive he started the race in 13th place. It was his best qualifying so far this season.
On Sunday morning he managed to complete nine laps in warm up and was the fastest rider in his team finishing 12th.
The 18 lap race took place under clear sunny skies, but the riders had to endure a very strong wind which had a significant impact in a number of rider incidents throughout the race.
At the start Nesbitt was unfortunate to be caught up behind an early collision which saw him lose seven places on the opening lap. It wasn’t long though before he started to work his way back through the filed. He moved up to 14th by the end of the second lap. Just a few laps later and the Monlau Engineering rider was into tenth place.
Ahead of him were Yuri Montella and Jose Garcia battling in the second group of the race. Although he was unable to catch them in the tricky conditions he went on to cross the line in seventh place, his best finish of his rookie season in the Moto3 Junior World Championship.
“After the last two rounds I am over the moon to have finished seventh. It’s my best result this year, but it was difficult out there with such a strong wind. Thanks to Scott Redding, Michael Bartholemy, Simon at SRS and Swindon Electrical,” said Nesbitt.