ASBK Rnd One Update #2 – Geese, crashes, and ‘which track is Wayne on?’

ASBK 2022 Round One – Phillip Island
Alpinestars Superbike Friday Round Up #2

The boys were really starting to get down to business in the second Supersport session only for a kangaroo to decide he wanted to explore the circuit which, combined with a fall from Ben Baker, brought the red flag out to temporarily suspend the session. 

Once the session got back underway Senna Agius set the pace at 1m35.264 ahead of Tom Edwards on 1m35.466. Agius under the qualifying lap record on the sole Honda, heading an almost all-Yamaha field.

Superbike FP2 got underway at 1320 and Wayne Maxwell put down a 1m32.090 on his opening lap of the session, then immediately backed it up with a 1m31.821 before returning to the pits.

Mike Jones and Bryan Staring then dropped in their first 1m32s of the day, a 1m32.966 to Jones and 1m32.886 to Staring. Cru Halliday then joined them with a 1m32.985. 

Ten minutes later the session was red flagged due to geese on track and Max Stauffer down at turn one.  The youngster escaping the incident relatively unscathed but the same couldn’t be said for his YZF-R1, dad retrieving the shock from it to put in the spare bike, but that #1 bike will see no further action this weekend.

I spoke briefly with Bryan Staring, Cru Halliday and Troy Herfoss after FP1 and shortly before this FP2 session.

 Bryan is happy with his progress on the DesmoSport Ducati, learning new things as he gets faster and faster on the bike, which in-turn then of course leads them to making more changes to cater for the extra speed as he works with Ben Henry on making the bike feel like ‘his’.   

Cru and Troy both recounted how fast Maxwell is looking, and if we could ‘ask Maxwell which track he is on’, as they said he isn’t on the same one as them….  Troy recounted that on Wayne’s 1m31.6 he had to overtake both him and Mike Jones, and that he did it with the bike sideways and the rear tyre smoking…  Wayne actually went quicker than that this morning, when he didn’t have to pass people, setting the early benchmark at 1m31.379. 

When FP2 got back underway with just under 15-minutes remaining in the session Maxwell dropped in another 1m31, a 1m31.794. 

Cru Halliday improved to 1m32.820 and Josh Waters made a big leap forward to a 1m32.876.  Epis improved to a 1m33.097 and the whole field were now starting to make some decent steps forward. 

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In the dying minutes of the session Wayne Maxwell then reeled off a 1m31.696 before immediately backing it up with a 1m31.497 before the chequered flag. 

Cru Halliday then declared his hand with a 1m31.958, Mike Jones improved to 1m32.286 and Lachlan Epis made a big leap forward to 1m32.490. 

Thus in FP2 we have Maxwell top of the pops once again, heading Halliday, Jones, Epis and Waters.  Jones also had a small tumble in that session.

The real question that nobody really knows the answer to, other than Wayne Maxwell himself, is just how hard is he pushing to achieve the times he is reeling off with apparent ease?  How much does he have left in the bag?  We could ask him, and I would like to say he would be his normally brutally honest self, but in the current situation perhaps not…. I think Wayne’s competition might be hoping for much hotter conditions come Sunday, so that Wayne’s tyres simply cannot hack that sort of pace over a race distance. Wayne himself though reckons he is good for a dozen 1m31s on a set of tyres, and Sunday’s race distance is 12 laps…

Alpinestars Superbike FP2

Michelin Supersport FP2

Dunlop Supersport 300 FP2

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