Gerloff, who was looking in terrific from through free practice - finished Friday’s World🤪SBK action third on combined times - was set to improve into the top ten before suffering his late session crash. 

The Am▨erican rider remains without a result worthy of his potential so far this season, however, Estoril was looking like a weekend where regular top five, if not podiums could have been possible. 

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Gerloff suffered a ‘deep wound’ on his left knee, and after medical checks it was determined🧜 that thཧe Texan would need to skip the rest of the weekend. 

Gerloff is not alone in being ruled out of the Estoril WorldSBK weekend as Philipp Oettl 𝄹and Michael Van Der Mark have also been forced to withdraw. 

Oettl su🐻ffered a fractured right collarbone following a crash at the same turn 13, which has since resulted in scheduled commentator for the weekend with Eurosport, Xavi Fores replacing the German rookie at Goeleven Ducati. 

"What a pity about this injury," said Oettl. "It happens to us now, as I was becoming mor𒅌e and more familiar 🅘with this Ducati. In FP1 we rode the whole session with the same tyre, taking it beyond the race distance, then in FP2 we were trying to get a good time on the SCX soft tyre, and right at the last corner I crashed with a hard highside! 

"Rolling in t🅘he gravel I broke my collarbone, and will have to have an operation to recover as soon as possible. 

"I waꦆs also lucky enough, however, because the crash was heavy the consequences could have been even worse. I thank the team for the work done in this ro𝐆und. We were also competitive here in Estoril and that's what counts. 

"If everyܫthing goes according to plꦜan we will be there in Misano!"

Van Der Mark’s awful 2022 WorldSBK campaign continues

The first rider to crash a🤡nd subsequently suffer injury was BMW’s Van Der Mark♏. 

The Dutch rider, who entered this weekend already less than 100% following his mountain bike accident earlier in the year, broke his right right neck femur.ಌ 

Unlike Oettl and Ducati, Van Der Mark has not been replaced for the remainder of the weekend, meaning Scott ♌Redding who qualified fourth ꦡfor today’s first of three races is on solo duty. 

Van Der Mark has already been operated on and will now look to be back for next month’s Misano rou൲nd. 

In terms of the on-track action, Jonathan Rea will start from pole for r꧑ace one in Estoril after bringing reigning w🍌orld champion Toprak Razgatlioglu’s pole streak of two to an end. 

Over six tenths down was championship leader Alvaro Bautista, however, the Ducati rider has shown more race pace so far at the Portuguese circuit, meaning a three-w𒁃ay fight for the win could again be on the cards.