Mike Jones rips ASBK FP2 at Morgan Park

Mike Jones dominates ASBK FP2 at Morgan Park

As the second of the three scheduled practice sessions got underway at Morgan Park this afternoon clouds had started to roll across Queensland’s Southern Downs area, bringing a strengthening breeze in its wake.

17 riders made it out for the second Supersport practice and after the 25-minutes elapsed it was Troy Guenther topping the timesheets from Brayden Elliott and Chris Quinn. This trio look like the hot favourites to battle for podium positions tomorrow as fourth placed Kane Burns still has some time to find if he is to get on equal terms with that triumvirate.

15 riders took to the track for the second Superbike bout and Mike Jones quickly established himself at the top of the pecking order once again by being the first man to dip into 1m16s around the three-kilometre Morgan Park Raceway.

Ben Henry had struggled in the morning session and failed to take to the track in FP2. Nick Marsh was on track but was black flagged by officials for the lack of a timing transponder.

Daniel Falzon got down to business early on in the session with a 1m18.731 but failed to make any significant improvements as the session progressed. At this early stage of the development cycle with the JD Racing YZF-R1 it is almost without doubt that Falzon would have gone quicker today on his Supersport YZF-R6 from last season.

In fact, at one stage the Supersport lap record here at Morgan Park was faster than the Superbike lap record! From our research the current Supersport lap record is held by Aiden Wagner with a 1m16.692 (2013) while the Superbike lap record is held by Mike Jones with a 1m16.135 (2014). TBC.

On current form the Superbike field has to find an enormous mount of speed if they are to challenge Jones here this weekend. At this stage of the game it is fair to say Jones might even lap half the Superbike field…

ASBK Superbikes will be out on track again we estimate around 4pm for their third and final 25-minute session for the day.

Superbikes have two 30-minute qualifying sessions tomorrow before a Top Ten Superpole session scheduled for 1515 Saturday afternoon.

The first Superbike race of the weekend is scheduled to take place at 1130 Sunday morning. The second and final 14-lap race is slated to get underway at 1445 Sunday afternoon.