Image: Supplied.

Australian Tayla Relph has continued her impressive form in the 2024 FIM Women’s Circuit Racing World Championship (WorldWCR) at Portugal’s penultimate round, her weekend highlighted by a P5 result in race one.

Relph, who entered Estoril’s fifth round coming off a maiden podium Cremona last month, displayed strong pace all weekend long, leading a number of laps in race one to ultimately cross the line in fifth position.

The Queenslander would unfortunately push her luck in race two as she fought with the lead group, with a mistake on lap four seeing her crash out of the 12-lap encounter.

“This weekend we made a massive jump to the front group,” Relph stated. “We not only fought in the front pack for the very first time, we lead a race, lead every wet session by well over one second, had our best Superpole result and once again, we showed what our little family team is capable of.

“Race two today, I had one of two options – give it a red hot crack and stick with the leading group for as long as I could, or sit back, take it easy and settle in for sixth position. Given my nature to fight and not take the easy road, I chose option two and gave it all I had to stick with the leading pack – and, I did.

“On lap five, I pulled in 0.6s from the lead group in just three corners, but sadly tucked the front under brakes going into turn four. We are on an incredibly steep learning curve this season and sometimes crashes happen when you are on the limit, and that’s ok, because we were finally where we know we could be.”

With the season coming to a close this weekend at Jerez in Spain, Relph is currently ranked seventh in the championship standings.