Queensland ASBK fan favourite Robbie Bugden has stepped into a full factory seat with Team Suzuki in 2013, and, riding the momentum of another New Zealand Superbike title, feels this will be his best shot yet at challenging for wins in the premier class.

Robbie Bugden braking heavily into the Symmons Plains hairpin at the opening round. Image: Andrew Gosling/TBG Sport.

On winning another New Zealand Superbike Championship…

It was definitely a tough season. They’ve all been pretty tough. This time’s been different. It was a championship in two halves. Down on the South Island we dominated – we won five of the six races and things were looking really strong, but then we went to the North Island and we couldn’t take a trick. We just struggled with a number of things and had a pretty tough time of it. All in all it was good to win my fifth championship for Suzuki, the Triple R race team and Volvo.

On returning to Suzuki as a full factory rider…

So far it has been really good. I guess the position I held in the satellite team wasn’t a long way from the factory team, so obviously I still worked with Phil quite a bit. I guess we kind of flew under the radar a bit, and now, being in the factory team, we don’t really have anywhere to hide. It’s kind of now or never for me, I’m not going to get a better bike than the GSX-R1000 to ride, and Phil and the boys know what they doing. This has to be my chance to get it done.

On Wayne Maxwell as a teammate…

Yeah he’s definitely a decent kind of guy. Pretty passionate about what he does, and pretty determined. Tasmania’s the first time we spent the time together as teammates and we got on great, so as things progress, with the upcoming test at Queensland and such, we can work together a bit more and hopefully work on that common goal of getting the best out of the bike that we can.

Bugden was third overall in Tasmania behind Glenn Allerton and teammate Wayne Maxwell. Image: Andrew Gosling/TBG Sport.

On the ASBK grid sizes…

I think the situation is world-wide. Our problem is exacerbated by the fact that we’ve got two series, which I don’t think is helping anyone out to be honest, but it’s good to see a few new teams coming, like Glenn Scott’s team, the Cube Racing  guys, and so on. The future is in getting these privateers coming in, the more of these top teams we can help along, the better the class can be.

On Glenn Allerton’s early ASBK dominance…

Glenn rode pretty well, the Next Gen guys have done their homework. To be honest with you he got lucky in a few areas. I didn’t get to test before Tassie, I went there and had one qualifier and one practice before we got going, so for me to be on the pace for race one was tough. I think if we did get that test in we would have been able to challenge a bit harder. In that race we jumped out, got the holeshot and the red flag came out. That fell in Glenn’s lap, I was a little bit disappointed we didn’t challenge as much as that in the second, I think we should have been able to do a bit more and not let him have it all his own way.

In saying that we’ve got a strong enough package, and we’ll see Dunlop coming out with a new tyre. We’re looking forward to Queensland, for sure. We’ll be putting the pressure on as much as possible, we won’t be settling for second place.