Daniel Falzon reviews his Phillip Island hat trick
He came, he saw and he conquered. Daniel Falzon (Caterpillar YZF-R1) has arrived as a true contender for the Yamaha Motor Finance Australian Superbike Championship presented by Motul Pirelli (ASBK) after dominating Phillip Island’s opening round of the Yamaha Motorcycle Insurance Superbikes.
He talked to Motorcycling Australia following the races:
MA: Congratulations. It was a perfect start to the season with pole position, three wins, the overall and the points lead… it couldn’t get any better!
Falzon: “Exactly right, it couldn’t get any better. The Caterpillar Yamaha has been working flawlessly over the weekend and the team as well. There were no faults throughout the weekend and we made the best decisions during the off-season, we did some R&D and the bike is absolutely perfect – there’s no complaints from me. I’m really excited to go out and continue this season. We’ve started out with a bang, 76 points is a big start in the championship, considering we only got marginally more than that last year in the whole season. I’m really excited for what the future has in store because we have a really competitive package this year.”
MA: There was a lot of hype going into the season, a lot of good guys, a lot of factory teams and also really strong support-type teams as well, but you didn’t expect to have this result at the end of round one, did you?
Falzon: “I didn’t put myself up there to be a round winner. I knew we would be mixing it up with the factories here and there, but that’s pretty much it. I’m absolutely speechless, to be faster than the factory teams on our privateer team is a credit to everyone involved. We’ve got quite a big supporter base and my social media has been going crazy since this weekend started because I don’t think anyone expected it, so I look forward to Wakefield Park.”
MA: Did you know the situation in the final race in terms of combined times?
Falzon: “Yeah, I was doing the calculations the whole time! I knew when Wayne [Maxwell] passed me I had a 1.6-second, or something like that, buffer over him and Glenn [Allerton] also wasn’t quite up there like Robbie [Bugden] and Bryan [Staring] were. So I just knew I had to stay behind them and in the last few corners I was close enough and didn’t bother making any stupid mistakes. I just stayed on the bike to collect first position.”
MA: You’re a multiple national champion on the 600 in Superstock and Supersport, but what’s it like to be leading the Superbike championship and how does that change your game plan heading into Wakefield?
Falzon: “It changes it a lot. I’ve quit my day job now – I haven’t told work yet, but I’ve just decided that I will [laughs]! So I’m putting everything into this year, it’s going to be everything we’ve got and this round was just a taste of it. So yeah, I’m excited and 76 points gives us a great buffer going into the next round, which is going to be difficult for us on the Yamaha’s. Never the less, it’s a long championship and we’ll go to some tracks that will really favour us and hopefully we’ll get another clean-sweep.”
