South Australian’s Jay Presepio believes he has the pace and the overall package to keep fighting at the front end of the field at this weekend’s third round of the Swann Insurance Australasian Superbike Championship (ASC).
Presepio, 22, enjoyed his best round to date at the second round of the YRD Supersport Championship at Mallala.
The Race Center/Northern Motorcycles pilot scored his maiden podium finish in Saturday’s Australian FX-Supersport Championship (AFX) with a 9-2-2 result, while in the ASC; he managed to win his first ever national race by holding Michael Blair (Yamaha YRD/Blairbuild/Campbell Home Hardware) at bay by just .075sec in a two part race in the second leg.
“I definitely think we have a good package to win,” said Presepio. “However we still need to keep working on our Race Center suspension, but the setup we have at the moment is awesome.”
At the opening round at the end of March, Presepio managed to set the second fastest lap time of the weekend by posting a 1min34.277 in race one on the Sunday. His time was .227sec off the best lap time of the weekend, which was set by Queenslander’s Callum Spriggs (Yamaha YRD/ Allsite Concrete Cutting/Hydro Construction) in race one’s AFX series.
While Presepio showed that he had pace at round one, he did struggle during qualifying which he admitted that was his downfall for the weekend.
“The key thing for this weekend is to make sure we qualify well. It’s a tough field in the Supersport class. The likes of Michael [Blair], Callum [Spriggs] and Baryden [Elliott] are super-fast. If I can be at least on the front row, I think I can run with the front running guys.”
The YRD AFX Supersport Championship sees Blair topping the title chase with 141-points to his name, thirteen points clear from Spriggs with Brayden Elliott (Hankook Tyres/Royan Truck Repairs) in third on 120. Presepio trails Elliott in fourth place on 99-points.
In the ASC Supersport Championship, points are a lot closer. Elliott leads the charge heading into this weekend on 123-points with Blair sitting nine points shy of him, while Spriggs is breathing right down Blair’s neck, just two points behind. Troy Guenther (Fresh Chef/PI Technical/Wallace), the first of the Kawasaki mounted men sits in fourth on 105-points.
Paul Young (SA Kawasaki Bcperformance), Mitch Levy (Warm & Safe Australia/YRD) and Presepio sit in fifth, sixth and seventh which sees just eight points between them.
– Russell Colvin
Australian FX-YRD Supersport Championship:
- Michael Blair 141
- Callum Spriggs 128
- Brayden Elliott 120
- Jay Presepio 99
- Mitch Levy 89
- Kyle Buckley 74
- Troy Guenther 67
- Michael Knight 59
- Brad Swallow 57
- Cambridge Olivier 57
Swann Insurance Australasian YRD Supersport Championship:
- Brayden Elliott 123
- Michael Blair 114
- Callum Spriggs 112
- Troy Guenther 105
- Paul Young 94
- Mitch Levy 90
- Jay Presepio 86
- Brad Swallow 72
- Cambridge Olivier 66
- Kyle Buckley 60