Anthony West impresses in Sepang

Anthony West stunned at Sepang this weekend as he stormed to Pedercini Kawasaki’s best result in more than a decade.

West was a last minute call up to replace Frenchman Sylvain Barrier, who has been out of action since a crash at Aragon early last month, and despite having not seen the bike until he sat on it on Thursday evening, West went on to show strong pace in tricky conditions across the weekend.

In Friday’s opening practice sessions he outpaced factory Kawasaki rivals Jonathan Rea and Tom Sykes before going on to take a strong ninth place in the opening race.

Known as a rider quick in the wet from his time in MotoGP, West grabbed the opportunity with both hands when a wet second race got underway on Sunday. The Australian fought a hard race to eventually cross the line fifth, claiming Pedercini Kawasaki’s best result since Lucio Pedercini raced himself.

“Ninth and fifth on a bike I’ve never seen before is more than we could ask for!” West said after the race. “For a private team this is a big deal and it’s the team’s best result since the owner himself raced over ten years ago.

“I really feel we could have made the podium if we had the bike set up, going into the race we already knew we were under-prepared with the settings and it was way  off how I needed the bike to be for me to ride it.”

West’s results were enough to draw interest from the team for the next round at Donington but it remains to be confirmed whether he’ll actually ride.