Image: Russell Colvin.

Words: Russell Colvin

Australian hopeful Aiden Wagner’s opportunity to line up in this weekend’s opening round of the 2018 Supersport World Championship (WorldSSP) has been denied as he continues to recover from a recent knee construction.

Wagner, 23, was pencilled in to replace the injured Andrew Irwin at CIA Landlord Insurance Honda for Phillip Island, however an existing injury has ruled him out following Tuesday’s opening session.

A best lap-time of 1m37.025s had Wagner 23rd on the time-sheet this morning following 18 timed laps on the CBR600RR, however he’s declared himself not yet strong enough to race this weekend. He underwent surgery just last month after damaging his ACL, MCL and meniscus riding motocross in November.

“The pain wasn’t the problem – I just couldn’t hang on and change direction,” Wagner told CycleOnline.com.au. “When I change direction my knee doesn’t want to stick with the bike and it kept blowing out with the wind and my foot doesn’t want to stay on the footpeg, as I have no strength. I have no calf muscle and I can’t tense my quads yet.

“It’s not good for me and not good for Simon [Buckmaster], so we have come to a mutual decision that it’s probably better to sit the round out. I enjoyed every bit of the 19 laps this morning and I’m really bummed out as I would have loved to have mixed it up with the guys this weekend. As I said, there is no real point me being out there and rolling around in last place, just trying to hang onto the bike.”

Wagner has been a regular in WorldSSP during his young career, lining up at Phillip Island for the last three years with a best finish of seventh last February as part of Team Lorini Honda. He split with the team during the Assen round and hasn’t return to the class since.