Ant West has been issued a retroactive ban by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and has had almost all the results for the last 18 months declared invalid. All of West's results between the Le Mans 2012 race and 20th October 2013 have been declared null and void, and will be scrapped from the official Moto2 results.

The retroactive ban goes back to a failed doping test at Le Mans in 2012. West had bought a supplement energy drink without checking the ingredients, and subsequently failed a drug test. The energy drink (Mesomorph) turned out to contain the banned substance methylhexaneamine, traces of which were found in West's urine. At the time, the FIM imposed a one month suspension on West, but the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) appealed against the leniency of the ban, and that appeal has now been partially upheld.

The CAS found that West had violated the anti-doping code, and that the use of the banned substance methylhexaneamine offered important short-term benefits in competition, which demanded punishment. However, the CAS were inclined to be more lenient than WADA had hoped, rejecting WADA's call for a two-year ban, and imposing an 18-month penalty. Furthermore, the penalty was imposed retroactively, meaning that West only faced a loss of existing results, rather than a ban from competition from this point on. But the penalty could have financial implications for West, as the Australian had two podiums at Sepang and Phillip Island in 2012, and both those results will now be rendered null and void. West may face claims to return any bonuses or prize money received for those results.

The provisional judgment of the CAS can be read in the PDF file on their website, with the full judgment due to be posted on the CAS website in the coming days.