Image: Supplied.

A promising weekend in Portugal saw Remy Gardner notch a season-best Superbike World Championship (WorldSBK) result of P4 in the superpole race, however, he was denied the chance of another credible finish on Sunday when he was ruled out of race two with a technical issue.

The Portimao circuit has proved to be a successful stomping ground for Gardner in the past, with the Australian winning Moto2 World Championship races at the venue in 2020 and 2021. He qualified ninth fastest in superpole at the penultimate round of this year’s WorldSBK Championship.

A solid showing in race one saw Gardner finish P6, before charging his way forward from ninth to finish a career-best fourth in the category for the superpole race. That result set the Australian up well for race two, where he launched from P4 on the grid and was third after the first lap before a technical issue forced him out while running in seventh on lap 11.

“Overall we had a positive weekend, although we had bad luck in race two,” Gardner recalled. “In the superpole race I had a great fight, managing to grab fourth, which allowed me to achieve a much better starting position for race two.

“There, I had a good getaway, but I was still missing a bit of pace on fresh tyres. Anyway, I started to get back and close the gap, I think I could have had good pace towards the end, but unfortunately, a technical problem forced me to retire. Nevertheless, the balance is positive, we showed great speed. There’s still a lot of work to do and a lot to learn, but we’re putting things together and I hope we can enjoy a great season finale.”

One round remains in Gardner’s rookie WorldSBK campaign, as the GYTR GRT Yamaha rider turns his attention to lights out at Jerez between 13-15 October.