Image: Foremost Media.

The breakout season of Senna Agius continued at The Bend, with the impressive teenager finishing P2 in a ‘surreal’ race two in South Australia to complete his second weekend racing a superbike.

Agius, 17, started the year by clean sweeping Supersport at Phillip Island’s opening round of the Mi-Bike Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK), before returning to Europe to make his debut in the European Moto2 Championship.

A successful 2022 overseas saw the number 81 finish second in the European Moto2 title race, also competing in the Moto2 World Championship on four occasions with the Elf Marc VDS Racing Team as a fill-in for the injured Sam Lowes, achieving a best result of ninth at Valencia.

During round six of ASBK at Phillip Island, Agius debuted with Penrite Honda Racing and notched a 6-8-DNF scorecard, notably brought down in an incident at turn four in the final race. Qualifying an improved seventh at The Bend, Agius’ first race at the seventh round came to a premature end with a technical issue, before delivering a standout performance in the second encounter.

Agius shot from the third row of the grid to P2 in the early stages, following Jack Miller (Thriller Motorsport) in hot pursuit for the first three laps, then shuffled back to P6 in the mid part of the race.

Delivering great pace when it counted, Agius clawed his way towards podium contention and ultimately kept his nose clean on the last lap to cross the line second, just 2.076s from champion Mike Jones and ahead of some well-respected international and domestic talent.

“It was surreal, following Jack [Miller] for the first couple of laps, I was looking to pass him, but couldn’t quite get it done,” Agius said to CycleOnline. “I could see, it was pretty blatantly obvious that he was struggling for grip out there.

“When [Mike] Jonesy, Troy [Herfoss] and Glenn [Allerton] came past me, I thought okay, it’s going to be hard to stay with them, but I found myself there. I dropped back and then I did one of the fastest laps of the race [1m51.133s] to get back on them and found some speed at the end.

“I found my way how to write the bike, my lap times dropped and I had never done those lap times all weekend. I think it’s a shame that the championship is finished, I just want to keep going, it’s quite fun to be here and race guys that I have looked up to forever. A big thank you to Honda Australia, Deon Coote, Tony Hinton and Penrite Honda Racing.”

Agius’ plans for next year have not been formally announced, however, with the minimum age of 18 being required to compete in the Moto2 World Championship from 2023, such restrictions will prevent him from graduating to complete a full season in the series.