Maxwell in league of his own on day one of ASBK season opener

ASBK 2022 Round One – Phillip Island
Alpinestars Superbike Friday Round Up #3

Wayne Maxwell had topped both FP1 and FP2 heading into today’s final 30-minute Superbike session. A 1m31.379 in FP1 and a 1m31.497 in FP2, were the benchmarks for the day prior to FP3. Would they be beaten desite the warmer late afternoon track temperature?

The stage had already been set for that to happen when Tom Edwards put in what we believe to be the fastest ever domestic Supersport lap of Phillip Island for the 600 cc category in the Supersport FP3 session. A 1m34.909 the new Australian Supersport benchmark to Edwards on the Dunlop shod Bikebiz Yamaha and recorded just before the Superbikes headed out on track for their final session of the day.

Daniel Falzon and the Williams Adams CAT backed JD Racing Team are using this weekend to undertake further work on the new MoTeC control ECU.  Daniel is visibly uncomfortable and still recovering from the injuries he sustained at The Bend in early December during the 2021 ASBK season finale. 

Falzon is certain that this weekend he would be faster on his previous bike fitted with the YEC kit electronics, but he and the team have judged that spending this weekend working through the new ECU, and the now longer wheelbase they can run under the parity adjustments we mentioned in our weekend preview, will be time well spent.  Especially considering that he and the family will miss round two due to the original date for the Queensland Raceway round being moved by a week, which means it now clashes with the weekend planned for his wedding. 

For this final session more than a few riders were planning to put some longer runs in to test tyre longevity in the warmer conditions more akin to what we are expecting on Sunday. It was still not hot by any means, but this afternoon’s 45-degree track temperature certainly expected to be a bit closer to what we will race on come Sunday than what they had experienced in FP1 and FP2.

Cru Halliday the first into the 1m32s in this session, a 1m32.840 on his first flying lap.  Maxwell crossed the line shortly afterwards to set a 1m32.310 on his first lap and immediately backed it up with a 1m31.543 before returning to the Boost Mobile Ducati pit garage.

Bryan Staring then put in his best time of the day thus far with a 1m32.711 and then continued to reel off more laps but amongst them in that stint there were no more 1m32s until much later in the session when he improved to 1m32.640.

Wayme Maxwell headed out again with 17-minutes remaining in the session and put in a 1m31.816 after passing a crashed Cru Halliday at turn four. Next time around Maxwell recorded a 1m31.905 and circulated a little longer before returning to the pits.

Halliday went back out and fired in a 1m32.836, failing to reproduce the 1m31.958 pace he displayed in FP2.

Mike Jones had put in a long run of high 1m33s over the first half of FP3 but then after heading back out late in the session reeled off a 1m32.395 then backed it up with a 1m32.736, followed by a 1m33.076 and a 1m32.791 to finish the day with a good run of laps.  Well a good run of laps compared to everyone else but Wayne Maxwell.

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Despite the flurry of fast laps towards the end of the FP3 session that saw many close the gap to Wayne, unless his competitors find a lot more speed tomorrow he is still looking to be in a race of his own come Sunday.

Wayne looks to be able to crack out 1m31s at will. The only other rider to dip into the 1m31s slipped in by the skin of his teeth with a 1m31.958 and that was Cru Halliday.

On today’s pace, Wayne looks good to run 1m31s in the race, while it looks doubtful that anybody else can even string a series of consistent 1m32s together, unless they find some more progress tomorrow, which I expect/hope they will. This is only Friday after all, but they are certainly all playing catch up…

On combined times Wayne Maxwell leading the way with his 1m31.379 from FP1.  Cru Halliday second with his 1m31.958 from FP2, Mike Jones also doing his best in that earlier FP2 session with a 1m32.286.

Fourth quickest on combined times is Lachlan Epis with a 1m32.490 ahead of Bryan Staring (1m32.640) and Josh Waters (1m32.876).

Arthur Sissis (1m33.612) seventh quickest ahead of Matt Walters and Glenn Allerton while Daniel Falzon rounded out the top ten ahead of Aiden Wagner and Troy Herfoss.

If you want to be across the other story lines that developed today, please check out our FP1 Report – Tales of rubber and domination – And our round up from FP2 – Geese, crashes, and ‘which track is Wayne on?’.

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