Young Southland motorcyclist Cormac Buchanan feels his MotoGP campaign is back on track after a disappointing run of results.

Buchanan, 19, finished 17th in last weekend's San Marino Moto3 race. Not a great result but after failing to finish recently, he'll take it.

"Honestly, it has been a really, really tough period for me lately with three DNFs on the spin," Buchanan said.

"We've taken a big step forward and the confidence is back because, honestly, I had lost a lot of that since the summer break. It's good to head into the Asian tour with good feelings."

Buchanan had three top 10 finishes in the first half of the season but injured his knee in a crash at the CzechGP in Brno in July and had struggled since.

The summer break gave him time to recover.

However, after that he also failed to finish in Austria, Hungary and Catalonia.

But his result at Italy's iconic Misano circuit was a boost.

"For me, it's about building on this result, even though our true potential wasn't reflected in the race due to circumstances out of our control. I know in these next races we can show it and I'm starting to feel like the rider I was before the summer break which is my main focus before the end of the season.

"It's not a run of form any racer wants and we came to Misano with a clear goal in mind to turn that around before we head away on the Asian tour. We achieved that."

Buchanan's next outing will be in the Grand Prix of Japan at Motegi Circuit from 26-28 September.

After that MotoGP races in Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia before heading back to Europe for the last two rounds in Portugal and Valencia.

Published by permission