YRT men top chilly Saturday morning FP4 session at Morgan Park ASBK

ASBK 2024
Round Four – Morgan Park
Saturday AM Report

Cam Dunker got out of the right side of bed this morning; the youngster dropped more than half a second off his Friday best early on in Saturday morning’s FP4 session, despite a very low track temperature.

The Ambient had only just reached ten-degrees by 1030, when the 35-minute FP4 session got underway.   Dunker was on top until Mike Jones relegated him to second by a single thousandth of a second with 25-minutes remaining.

Despite the cold and the fact this was only a practice session, there would be lessons being learned that would likely prove quite important for the opening 16-lap bout scheduled to start at 1125 on Sunday morning.

The forecast for tomorrow is for even slightly cooler conditions than what we are experiencing today.  If that was not the case, it is a fair bet that some of the heavy hitters might have hardly turned a wheel in the FP4 session, but instead, Superbike competitors were getting plenty of laps in.

Cru Halliday shot to the top with just under ten-minutes to go, a 1m12.953, the YRT man then backed that up with a 1m12.835, the fastest time of the weekend thus far.

Glenn Allerton put in a 1m13.138 on his 14th lap of the session to push Jones back to third place.

Mike Jones returned fire a few minutes later, a 1m13.096, pushing Allerton back to third and making it a YRT 1-2 at the top of the table.

Broc Pearson then dropped in a 1m13.010 on the DesmoSport Ducati to push Jones back to third, only for Jones to cross the stripe seconds later with a 1m12.899 to make it a YRT 1-2 yet again.

When the chequered flag came out at 1105, Halliday and Jones were still the only riders in the 12s, a 1m12.835 to Cru and 1m12.899 for Mike.

Broc Pearson had improved on his Friday time by almost two-tenths to go third in the cold conditions.

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Max Stauffer, along with his young Penrite Yamaha team-mate Cam Dunker, was one of the few others to go quicker this morning. Stauffer’s 1m13.455 on Saturday morning besting his 1m13.757 from yesterday. We believe Max is still far from his potential, though, as apparently, he was very quick here during testing a few weeks back.

Mike Jones set the qualifying lap record here last year at 1m12.079. The Queenslander also set a new race lap record that weekend. That benchmark to beat is 1m12.079. Will we see an 11 this afternoon…? Superbike competitors will be back on track for Qualifying at 1435. The opening 16-lap race is scheduled for 1125 on Sunday morning, while the second and final bout of the round will start at 1505.

Superbike FP4

ASBK Superbike Championship Points

Supersport

The power tripped twice before anybody had even got on track on Saturday morning at Morgan park, then tripped again just after Supersport’s first qualifying got underway, and tripped yet again halfway through the session. By that 15-minute mark of the 30-minute Supersport Q1 session, more than half of the field had yet to turn a wheel. Jack Favelle was the bravest early on, with an impressive 1m15.955s.

The 0930 start time and subsequent 14-degree track temperature were hardly conducive to really fast times; in fact, they were more conducive to cold tearing and front-end loses. The ambient was in the single digits which had the Queenslanders in the paddock shivering in their boots. Warwick is one of the coldest places in Queensland. Just up the road in Stanthorpe, snow is not unheard of…

With just over ten-minutes remaining, 13 of the 16 riders had turned laps, only for the red flag to come out and halt proceedings after Hayden Nelson went down at turn three.  His bike impacted the air-fence, which caused a delay. The air-fence was inspected before the pit exit opened again. Another power outage happened during the short delay. Just before the red flag, Jonathan Nahlous displaced Favelle from the top of the leaderboard with a 1m15.805. That marker stood the test of time in Q1.  Neither Tom Bramich nor Tom Toparis turned a wheel in the first qualifying session.

Supersport Q1

Supersport Championship Points

Supersport 300 Championship Points

bLU cRU Oceania Junior Cup Championship Points

2024 Australian Superbike Championship Calendar

• Round 1: Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit, VIC Feb 23-25
• Round 2: Sydney Motorsport Park, NSW Mar 22-23
• Round 3: Queensland Raceway, QLD Apr 26-28
• Round 4: Morgan Park Raceway, QLD Jul 12-14
• Round 5: Phillip Island GP Circuit, VIC Sept 7-8
• Round 6: One Raceway, NSW Oct 4-6
• Round 7: The Bend Motorsports Park, SA Nov 8-10