Cru Halliday on the MotoGP Support Races
Yamaha Racing Team’s Cru Halliday showed great form at the recent MotoGP support races.
Halliday took pole position and missed out on victory in the opening bout by a nose after being passed at the finish line by Waters on the Boost Mobile V4 R.
Waters only got stronger from thereon in, but it was Halliday that ran him closest all weekend, finishing with a trio of second place finishes for second overall at the event ahead of Bryan Staring, and his ASBK Championship leading Yamaha team-mate Mike Jones.
Halliday had also gone well at the Phillip Island ASBK season opener back in February, and thus will be going to the next round of the Australian Superbike Championship, to be held at Phillip Island alongside the final round of the FIM Superbike World Championship, with extra confidence to finish the final two rounds of the season on a high.
Both of the Queensland rounds of this years 2022 mi-bike Motorcycle Insurance Australian Superbike Championship stunted Halliday’s title charge, but he is still currently fifth in the championship, and perhaps could finish as high as third outright if the final two rounds go his way.
We sent Mark Bracks to get a few words from Cru immediately after the MotoGP support races at Phillip Island.
Cru Halliday
“It’s good, obviously I’m disappointed we didn’t win, but coming into this weekend I thought I could win it. But it’s good to see Josh land back on his feet. I know he’s had a rough couple of years, as riders it gets pretty emotional and half the time you just want to quit. But it’s good to see he’s stuck with it and Ducati threw him a lifeline, and it just shows how good that bike is.
“Not taking anything away from Josh, he’s an unbelievable rider and is great at this circuit. But they must have that bike dialled unbelievable, he was on another planet this weekend.
“With my team, we still rode unbelievable, I don’t think I made many mistakes, probably one all weekend, running wide in turn four just then, but I think we just need to make our bike a bit more user friendly.
“Kev’s working flat out, he’s got it working good, we’re getting good results, but just a little fine tuning, rear grip here and there.
“It’s hard to do, really hard to do, with the electronic package we’ve got. But it’s what we’ve got, what we got to use, and we’ve made a bit of a step forward, but they’re little tiny steps. We need to be making bigger steps.
“It’ll come. Come ASBK we should be in fighting form and it’ll be interesting to see who brings the pace then. I know Wayne will be back racing then and they say he’s the king of the island.
“I don’t know, it’s been a good weekend for us, but still disappointing for us, I wanted that win. It is what it is.”
“The atmosphere at MotoGP puts you in a bit of a different mood, and also it’s WorldSBK when we come back here next, the rubber is down and we usually run pretty fast.
“At MotoGP as the weekend went on we went faster, it wasn’t because everyone was getting more laps, it was because the wind was getting less and less.
“The first couple of days, Thursday and Friday they were crazy windy and today was actually pretty good for Phillip Island. So can’t complain and pumped for the team.”
Australian Superbike MotoGP Support Class Points
Non Championship Event thus points do not count towards ASBK Championship
| Pos | Rider | Bike | R1 | R2 | R3 | Total |
| 1 | Josh WATERS | Ducati | 25 | 25 | 25 | 75 |
| 2 | Cru HALLIDAY | Yamaha | 20 | 20 | 20 | 60 |
| 3 | Bryan STARING | Ducati | 17 | 18 | 18 | 53 |
| 4 | Michael JONES | Yamaha | 18 | 17 | 17 | 52 |
| 5 | Troy HERFOSS | Honda | 16 | 16 | 16 | 48 |
| 6 | Jed METCHER | Yamaha | 15 | 15 | 15 | 45 |
| 7 | Alastair HOOGENBOEZEM | Yamaha | 14 | 13 | 13 | 40 |
| 8 | Peter BERRY | Suzuki | 13 | 12 | 12 | 37 |
| 9 | Dennis BECH | Ducati | 12 | 11 | 11 | 34 |
| 10 | Broc PEARSON | Ducati | 14 | 14 | 28 | |
| 11 | Tracey DAVIES | Ducati | 10 | 9 | 9 | 28 |
| 12 | Gary TIDD | Ducati | 11 | 10 | 21 | |
| 13 | Cori BOURNE | Suzuki | 9 | 10 | 19 |
mi-bike Motorcycle Insurance
2022 Alpinestars Superbike Championship Points Standings
| Pos | Name | Total |
| 1 | Mike JONES | 242 |
| 2 | Wayne MAXWELL | 213 |
| 3 | Bryan STARING | 189 |
| 4 | Troy HERFOSS | 170 |
| 5 | Cru HALLIDAY | 161 |
| 6 | Glenn ALLERTON | 160 |
| 7 | Arthur SISSIS | 156 |
| 8 | Josh WATERS | 136 |
| 9 | Anthony WEST | 117 |
| 10 | Daniel FALZON | 111 |
| 11 | Max STAUFFER | 76 |
| 12 | Lachlan EPIS | 66 |
| 13 | Broc PEARSON | 65 |
| 14 | Jed METCHER | 62 |
| 15 | Michael EDWARDS | 59 |
| 16 | Mark CHIODO | 58 |
| 17 | Aiden WAGNER | 47 |
| 18 | Matt WALTERS | 32 |
| 19 | Beau BEATON | 27 |
| 20 | Ben STRONACH | 25 |
| 21 | Nathan SPITERI | 22 |
| 22 | Chandler COOPER | 21 |
| 23 | Paul LALLY | 20 |
| 24 | Sloan FROST | 17 |
| 25 | Benjamin LOWE | 11 |
| 26 | Luke MACDONALD | 10 |
| 27 | Luke JHONSTON | 7 |
| 28 | Corey FORDE | 3 |
mi-bike Motorcycle Insurance
2022 ASBK Calendar
| Round 1 Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit, VIC 25 – 27 February |
| SBK, SSPT, SS300, R3 Cup, OJC, SBK Masters |
| Round 2 Queensland Raceway, Ipswich QLD 18 – 20 March |
| SBK, SSPT, SS300, R3 Cup, OJC, Sidecars |
| Round 3 Wakefield Park Raceway, Goulburn NSW 22 – 24 April |
| SBK, SSPT, SS300, R3 Cup, OJC, Aussie Racing Cars |
| Round 4 Hidden Valley Raceway, Darwin NT 17 – 19 June |
| * With Supercars – SBK Only |
| Round 5 Morgan Park Raceway, Warwick QLD 5 – 7 August |
| SBK, SSPT, SS300, R3 Cup, OJC |
| Round 6 Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit, Cowes VIC 18 – 20 November |
| SBK, SSPT, SS300 |
| Round 7 The Bend Motorsport Park, Tailem Bend SA 25 – 27 November |
| SBK, SSPT, SS300, R3 Cup, OJC |
| ASBK Night of Champions Dinner – The Bend 27 November |
