Aussie WSBK rookie Josh Hook has lost his ride with Grillini Racing Kawasaki just days after taking his first championship points at Sepang.

Hook, who had missed part of the start of the season through injury, will be replaced at the Donington Park round by South African rider Sheridan Morais.

“I didn’t actually see it coming,” said Hook a few days after being told he was out, “but I imagine it has been coming for a while. I’m lost for words really because I do not know what the go is – at all.”

Hook can see only one reason why he should suddenly be out after regaining fitness and scoring points for the first time.

“I am not paying for my ride and I think that is the sole reason it has happened,” said Hook. “His (Grillini’s) wife gave me a call and said ‘we don’t want you riding any more because you are not performing as good as you should.’ In Sepang I was nearly twenty seconds faster than my team-mate in race one, and over a minute in front in race two.”

Despite this unwelcome news Hook still has a contract for the season, as he explained. “We have a contract in place that we have to abide by. He has breached the contract in several different ways, and I have stuck to it. I am going to Donington, and I’ll have a chat with Gregorio (Lavilla) from Dorna and see if we can find a solution to this. I do not want this to reflect badly on a championship that I want to be part of for a long time, so I want to go about it in a more sincere way.”

The irony of Hook’s situation is that after the tough injury affected start of the year real progress was made at Sepang, with Josh scoring in both wet and dry conditions – no mean feat for a privateer in his first year in a season such as this one.