Mike Jones reflects on championship winning weekend at The Bend

Mike Jones

2022 Australian Superbike Champion

“It’s been a fantastic season this year, making the transition from Ducati to Yamaha was a big deal for me. Getting acquainted with the Yamaha R1M was quite a nice feeling, the bike just gelled well with my riding style. It didn’t take me long to feel great on the bike and for me to feel comfortable and that gave me a lot of confidence, and it all clicked early on. Obviously Phillip Island was our first round of the championship where we were sort of just finding our feet, not only for me with the bike, but also with the team. Learning my guys and getting that relationship together. We hit it off great, and it’s just been perfect ever since.”

On leaving Phillip Island after round one, when did you think you were in with a chance as champion?

“Honestly, I believe I can win the championship every year, otherwise I wouldn’t turn up. I thought that was the case before I even got on the motorbike. Once I got on the bike and had a ride of it, I knew straight away. It was fantastic, obviously there was a lot of talk leading into the weekend, and to take pole position was the first job, and that first race then, as much as I wanted to win it, in the moment during the race, it would have been really silly of me to do anything more than I needed to and put the championship in jeopardy. So to finish that race, get the championship done, with a race to spare, that was a significant achievement I think. Then as we saw in that last race I was just able to ride my normal race, and obviously I wanted to do all my talking on the track and that’s what I did.

“It was a great race, obviously like Arthur mentioned the start is crucial and I got shuffled back a few spots there and there was a few guys in front of me. I was just trying to find a bit of a rhythm and trying to get feel with the bike, we made some changes between race one to race two, so I was trying to find myself a comfortable spot, the other guys were super hungry.

“The way this track is, obviously, the first part of the race you need to be a little conservative with the tyre, because the tyres degrade as the race goes on, and I was being a bit conservative and obviously some of the guys around me were going flat-knacker and were able to keep up and make some passes.

“But as the bike started to come to me and I started to feel good, the tyres started to come good, we were really strong at the end of the race and made some passes. Once we got into the lead I wanted to make a bit of a gap and the bike felt fantastic, so I was able to do some fast lap times make that gap and hold it to the end.

“There’s so many people to thank, but it’s not just this one season where people have helped you, it’s been so many people over so many years to arrive at this point. Of course the Yamaha Racing Team, the people in the team have given me an environment that I can achieve this result, and the close people around me, my personal sponsors, my partner Chrissy, and my family, they are my main people around me that take care of me in between the races and make sure I can turn up to do a good job.”

2022 Alpinestars Australian Superbike Championship Points (Final)

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