Image: Supplied.

A fall at turn eight during Sunday’s 2023 Moto2 World Championship outing at Misano isn’t reflective of the progress Senna Agius made throughout the San Marino weekend, notably qualifying closer than he ever has to pole position in the category at that level.

Misano marked Agius’ fourth appearance as a fill-in for Darryn Binder at the Liqui Moly Husqvarna Intact GP team this year, and his second time competing at Misano in the world championship, replacing the injured Sam Lowes at the Elf Marc VDS Racing Team in 2022.

On Saturday, Agius narrowly missed transferring into Q2 by less than one-tenth, and overall he was 20th on the grid and just seven-tenths from pole position – the closest he has been in the world championship so far. Also, his qualifying lap of 1m36.967s was faster than his Q1 effort last year of a 1m37.567s.

In the race, Agius unfortunately fell in the early stages at turn eight, ultimately bringing an end to his San Marino outing. Nonetheless, the talented teenager made positive progress across the weekend that he will be able to draw on in the future.

“Not a good end to the weekend at all, especially when I feel like we’d made such big strides compared to the other races I have done with the team this year,” said Agius. “I was hoping to bring a result home for everybody, but I got caught up in a racing situation and had to stop a bit more than normal into Turn 8, broke rear contact and had a high side. Really disappointing but we have to put it behind us because I think we made big progress in all aspects this weekend.”

Outside of his world championship fill-in roles, Agius leads the European Moto2 Championship for the Liqui Moly Husqvarna Intact GP Junior Team as two rounds remain in that series this year.