Yamaha Racing Team with Yamaha Motorcycle Insurance’s Cru Halliday scored his second pole position of the season in the Australian FX-IPONE Superbike Championship at Sydney Motorsport Park, after the twenty-seven-year-old stopped the clock with a 1min 31.156sec.
The reigning champion, Wayne Maxwell will start alongside his teammate, making it 1-2 for the Queensland based team.
“It’s unbelievable to get pole,” Halliday said in an official press release. “After Mallala the confidence has been pretty well down, but you know that was the arm pump issue. The best thing about today,I had no arm pump issue at all. So that is a positive thing heading into tomorrow.”
Maxwell was happy enough with his efforts, and later explained that he only did two laps as he needed the tire for the rest weekend to race on.
“We are in a good position to be competitive tomorrow,” said the Victorian rider.“We have worked through a number of settings on the Yamaha R1M. We will work through a few more tomorrow and hopefully on pay day on Sunday we are there thereabouts.”
Qualifying third was the championship leader, Troy Herfoss (Team Honda Racing) who lapped the 3.93km Gardner circuit with a 1min31.339sec.
Just like at Mallala, Herfoss did hit the deck during practice three after he tucked the front at turn three. “I’m happy to end up in third today, seeing we missed a session due to my crash,” said Herfoss. “We didn’t really get anytime on the new tyre we had on before the qualifying started, so I just worked into qualifying really slowly.”
Herfoss normally only does two flying laps in qualifying, but this time around he did three. Herfoss did make note the biggest thing was that he has improved his time in the last sector since the opening round in March.
Rounding out the top five was Sean Condon (BikeBiz/IPONE/Swann Insurance Racing) and Cube Racing Kawasaki’s Mike Jones.
Herfoss’s teammate Jamie Stauffer will start from sixth, while the third of the Yamaha riders, Glenn Allerton will kick off from seventh place.
Matt Walters (KMF Finance/Kawasaki Australia) starts from eighth. The top eight riders are covered by .766sec.
Ben Burke (SA Kawasaki Bcperformance) was the first rider outside the 1m31s bracket, who will start from ninth. Beau Beaton (McMartin Racing/Racer’s Edge Performance/North Coast V-Twins Ducati) completes the top ten on the all-new 1299 Panigale.
In the YRD Supersport class, Troy Guenther (Fresh Chef/PI Technical/Wallace) made it back-to-back pole positions with a 1min33.977, .430sec faster than Michael Blair (YRD/Blairbuild/Campbell Hardware).
“This is just great to score another pole,” said Guenther. “The Kawasaki ZX6R is performing really well on the XXX Race Suspension. Hopefully I can keep it all together for the three races tomorrow.”
Brayden Elliott (Hankook Tyres/Royan Truck Repairs) slotted his Suzuki GSXR-600 in third with a 1min 34.569.
CallumSpriggs (YRD/Allsite Concrete Cutting/Hydro Construction) and Mitch Levy (Warm & Safe Australia/YRD) rounded out the top five.
Ben Henry (Cube Racing Kawasaki/Australian Outdoor Living) snared pole in the Race Tech Formula Oz class, pipping LTR Honda’s Paul Byrne by over a second. Mitch Paynterwas the third best rider in the class.
Former 500cc and BSB star, Paul Young showed the rest field how it was done in the Kawasaki Insurances FX-300 Ninja Cup.
The SA Kawasaki Bcperformance pilot was .175sec faster than Luke Burgess (Kawasaki Motors Finance/Mackay Kawasaki). JDR’s Jack Dawes was the first New South Welshman home in third, .809sec behind Young’s time.
Young and up and coming star Hunter Ford (Kelen Kawasaki) was fourth while Tony Jones was fifth on his XXX Rated Suspension Kawasaki Ninja 300.
KTM Road Racing’s Angus Reekie snared pole in the Nakedbikes, Craig McMartin (Racer’s Edge) was the best placed rider in the AMCN Pro-Twins class. Glenn Birchall (Woolich Racing/Phegans Bay Plumbing) grabbed pole in the C & D Formula Xtreme, while Danny Pottage scored the top time in the (eFXC).
– Russell Colvin
Superbike qualifying results:
1. Cru HALLIDAY 1m31.156
2. Wayne MAXWELL 1m31.265
3. Troy HERFOSS 1m31.282
4. Sean CONDON 1m31.339
5. Mike JONES 1m31.391
6. Jamie STAUFFER 1m31.492
7. Glenn ALLERTON 1m31.555
8. Matthew WALTERS 1m31.922
9. Ben BURKE 1m32.161
10. Beau BEATON 1m33.253
Supersport qualifying results
1. Troy GUENTHER 1m33.977s
2. Michael BLAIR 1m34.407s
3. Brayden ELLIOTT 1m34.569s
4. Callum SPRIGGS 1m34.863s
5. Mitch LEVY 1m34.895s
6. Jay PRESEPIO 1m35.210s
7. Kyle BUCKLEY 1m35.277s
8. Brad SWALLOW 1m35.288s
9. Paul YOUNG 1m35.450s
10. Luke MITCHELL 1m35.703s