Mike Jones pips Jack Miller to pole position at The Bend

ASBK 2022

The Bend finale – Superbike Qualifying

The wind had been causing more than a few riders problems here during Timed Practice. Some of the riders with winged bikes reporting that at turn one as they tipped in the wind got under the wings and created instability, something that the wings generally improve upon when conditions are more favourable.  The wind was changing direction and getting even more blustery ahead of the afternoon qualifying sessions, and some drizzle on the horizon threatened to complicate things further…

No wings were seen in the Superbike Masters qualifying session for Period 5 and Period 6 Historic bikes though.

It was an interesting session though as Troy Corser took to the track on an RC30 for the first time since winning the Australian Superbike Championship on one for Honda in 1993. 

Corser was sixth in the Q1 Superbike Masters session, six-seconds behind TT rider David Johnson who topped the session on a fire-breathing Carl Cox backed Period 5 Unlimited Suzuki Katana that was 20 km/h quicker down the chute than Corser’s Honda.

The Supersport Championship is also on the line this weekend and John Lytras has the upper hand in that war with a 26.5 point lead over Ty Lynch while Tom Bramich was only a single point further adrift.  And this weekend there was a wildcard in the mix with Harrison Voight returning from Europe and racing the event as part of Jack Miller’s Thriller Motorsports outfit and throwing his hat in the ring for a win this weekend.

The final qualifying session for the 600 category was interrupted by a red flag after Luca Durning crashed at turn ten and required medical attendance. Then when the session was about to get underway rain started falling here at The Bend…

Harrison Voight had topped the earlier Q1 session and thus the 16-year-old took pole ahead of Dallas Skeer and Tom Bramich.

Ty Lynch will head row two while Supersport championship leader John Lytras will have to start from eighth on the grid, definitely not where he will want to be and that might put a little more pressure on his shoulders leading into the two nine-lap bouts that will decide the championship tomorrow.

During the damp Supersport 300 final qualifying session officials stopped the session due to oil on the circuit. What followed was a very lengthy clean up process that caused a significant delay in proceedings.

After the clean up was finished the sidecars held their opening race of the weekend before the Oceania Junior Cup kids then contested their final qualifying session. The track was now in pretty good shape and no more rain was expected. Game on…

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Q1

Missing from the 15-minute Q1 session was Josh Hook. After his tumble yesterday that resulted in a broken scaphoid he did attempt to ride this morning but it was simply too difficult and the reigning FIM Endurance World Champion will take no further part in the proceedings this weekend. Although it was suggested that he could be a grid girl for Jack Miller on the grid…

Only the top three riders would earn their promotion through to the final Q2 and there were 18 riders on track in Q1 trying to secure one of those berths. Bryan Staring, Daniel Falzon, Marcel Schroetter, Anthony West and Senna Agius perhaps the most fancied runners to figure at the front but four-minutes into the session and prior to putting in a decent lap Bryan Staring ran off the circuit after getting in a little too hot under brakes at turn six. Now the pressure was really on for the DesmoSport Ducati rider…

Staring responded though by dropping in a 1m52.895 on his next lap to move up to P2 behind Falzon and Broc Pearson was in P3 as the session reached its halfway mark.

Senna Agius then pushed Staring back to P3 and Pearson down to P4 and it was not until we were well into the second half of this session that Anthony West put in a lap, and his first flying lap was a 1m53.214 that saw him enter the session in P7.

With five-minutes to run Joel Kelso put in his best lap of the weekend to push Pearson back to P5 and promote himself up into P4. The riders inside that top three cut-off were Falzon, Agius and Staring.

Then with just over a minute to go Jed Metcher pushed Staring out of the top three!

Marcel Schroetter put in a hot lap to move up to P5 which pushed Kelso back to P6 and Pearson back to P7.

The graduates are Daniel Falzon, Senna Agius and Jed Metcher.  Bryan Staring misses out on making it through and will start tomorrow from 13th place on the grid. That’s a tough blow to his, albeit distant, championship chances…

With a short gap before Q2 the top three from this session might actually have an advantage to take into the final session. They know exactly what condition the track is in now, and in the gap have enough time to make some small tweaks that might help push them up the order…

Q2

Pit lane opened for the 15-minute Q2 session at 1555 this afternoon and Arthur Sissis was first to hit the track ahead of Glenn Allerton, Wayne Maxwell, Josh Waters, Billy McConnell and sixth on the track was that fella on a yella bike, Jack Miller….

Sissis was the first man in the 1m51s with a 1m51.599 but seconds later his buddy Jack Miller joined him to go P2 on 1m51.642 but Mike Jones then gazumped them both with a 1m51.191 on his first flying lap to go P1 and backed it up with a 1m51.560.

With ten minutes to go the likes of Billy McConnell, Wayne Maxwell and Troy Herfoss were still to set a lap-time…

Jack Miller then improved to 1m51.194, only three-thousandths off Jones as the session broached the halfway point.

Troy Herfoss didn’t attempt a lap until there was five-minutes left in the session and was immediately under at the first split by a gnat’s whisker… It then went away from him though, losing half-a-second to the second split but still crossed the stripe to go P5.

With three-minutes left it was still a Jones, Miller and Sissis front row…  Then less than 60-seconds later Halliday came from way back to take provisional pole with a 1m50.864…

Then there were red first sectors lighting up the timing screens… Miller, Agius, Herfoss, Allerton and Waters all under at the first split… Josh Waters the one to carry it through to the line though with a 1m51.183 to push Jones back to P3 and Miller back to the second row…

Then Jack Miller goes top with 45-seconds left in the session… A 1m50.805…

Mike Jones and Glenn Allerton on hot ones… Jones still red through the third sector…. And yes he does it! Mike Jones takes pole on 1m50.644….  And that important championship point that goes with it… He now has 39-points up his sleeve with only 50 remaining on the table so while it is not over until it is over, I think we can expect Mike Jones to be crowned champion here tomorrow morning in race one.

Our front row is Jones, Miller and Halliday while Glenn Allerton moved up to head the second row in the dying seconds of the session.

A terrible session for Wayne Maxwell, the defending champ will start from the outside of the fourth row…  And a similar story for DesmoSport Ducati with both Broc Pearson and Bryan Staring experiencing problems. Herfoss also has more speed in the bag, a small change on the bike in the bars felt unfamiliar and that stunted his effort at a quick lap.  Clearly, all four have far superior pace than what they showed here today, and tomorrow is a new day…

Glenn Allerton is feeling pretty strong in fourth and Arthur Sissis will certainly be a podium contender from fifth on the grid. Then there is of course our winner from last weekend, Josh Waters…  An improving Billy McConnell might be a danger and I think Marcel Schroetter might work himself further up the order come race day.

Mike Jones – P1

“That was a pretty crazy qualifying session. Banked a decent time to start with, then the crew was on the ball and gave me a bike to go back out there and do that lap time. Can’t wait for the two races tomorrow.”

Jack Miller – P2

“Happy we could pull it out in the quali, the wind make it really tricky out there, but at least it was dry, understand the bike and the tyres a little bit more. I did a practice start before and it wasn’t very pretty so I hope they don’t look quite as terrible as they did last year.”

Looking to tomorrow…

In yesterday’s much hotter conditions the SCX rear for the Pirelli riders was the tyre of choice. With an expected much cooler track surface for the races tomorrow, the tyre choices are not quite as clear, however it seems the consensus is leaning towards the ‘A’ tyre, but it will still be somewhat of a gamble.

The main game for the teams leading in tomorrow is trying to arrive at a suspension set-up that will allow their riders to keep a rear tyre together for the 11-lap race distances. How easy the bike is to ride over the last five or six laps, and how good the riders are at riding to that strategy, and then controlling their bike when the tyres have gone away, will be the primary deciding factors as to who will take the chequered flag first…

Ahead of the race I should probably also restate some information that I published yesterday in the FP2 report to help clarify some errneous information being published elsewhere on the internerd and unsocial media.  Jack Miller is able to use the same tyres as available to everyone else this weekend. Miller is running on Pirelli rubber and has the same selections available to him as any other Pirelli rider.

The primary difference on Jack’s bike compared to some of the Ducati machinery in the field, is that due to MotoGP testing restrictions, he can’t run the full spec’ Marelli ECU that is available to Ducati riders in the field. That is not as huge a drawback as it sounds as plenty of lap records have been set on the same standard V4 R electronics that Jack is using, and to be honest, those in the field that have the kit Marelli ECU fitted do not exactly have an army of data analysts to fully capitalise on its capabilities. But certainly they do have more data to study than Jack has available to him.  On the other side of the coin, the system that the Yamaha riders used to go 1-2-3 yesterday, and 1-3-5 today is actually not as sophisticated as the standard Ducati system on Jack’s V4 R.

Time on this bike and experience on the Pirelli tyres are bigger obstacles to Jack than any electronic barrier. I have no doubt he will be near the front when the lights go out, and late in the race when they start treading that even finer line on the limit, his well honed bike control will come to the fore after such a long and intense season of MotoGP racing on the limit, every lap, every time…

Superbike Qualifying Results

Supersport Combined Qualifying Results

Superbike Masters Qualifying Times

Alpinestars Superbike Championship Points

The Bend ASBK Schedule