Yamaha Motor Australia press release:

The third round of the Yamaha Motor Finance Australian Superbike Championship proved to be a good round for YRT supported riders Cru Halliday and Daniel Falzon with both riders inside the top five and maintaining a good position in the championship chase.

CHR Yamaha’s Halliday was the best overall finisher in the YMI Superbike category he after scored two third place finishes in both races at the 3.0 kilometre Winton Motor Raceway circuit in Victoria, which handed him third place for the round.

The opening race went pretty well for Halliday, who was in fifth place for the first eight laps before moving into fourth, then upto third on lap eleven as he charged his way forward. However, in the last part of the race Halliday made a mistake which allowed Robbie Bugden and Troy Herfoss back past but Halliday fought back and managed to get back around Herfoss to claim third for the race.

Race two saw Halliday and JD Racing’s Falzon fighting out for third place, in the end Halliday managed to beat the young South Australian rider by 1.349 seconds handing him third place with 36-points for the round.

“Overall it has been a good weekend for the team and I,” said Halliday who scored his second podium finish in the Australian Superbike class. “I knew we would be strong at the end of each race so it was important that I maintained good track position in the early stages.

“It’s good to get on the podium and the team did a great job all weekend,” Halliday ends.

Daniel Falzon scored fifth place overall for the round after he finished with 5-4 results in the two races. More importantly, Falzon, who has now racked up thirty race starts in the Superbike class, still leads the title fight with 139-points to his name, nine points clear from Yamaha Racing Team’s Wayne Maxwell.

“The result wasn’t ideal this weekend,” said Falzon. “We came into this round with the expectation of still leading the championship when we left Winton, which we have done that but I would have like to have gone a little better.”

In race one, Falzon suffered some significant tyre issues, but managed to solve the problem for race two. Falzon explained that the battle he had with Halliday in race two where the two were evenly matched; he had a bit more pace at the start of the race, but knew Halliday would get stronger towards the end, given what happened to him in race one.

“We learnt from our mistakes from race one and we won’t do what we did again,” explained the 22-year-old. “I just tried to stay with Cru for as long as I could and together we raced backwards and forwards but he was able to make it stick by the end of the race.

Nevertheless, Falzon did what he needed to do and that was to stay aboard his Caterpillar/Mainline Dynolog Dynometers Yamaha YZF-R1 and stay consistent for the championship.

At the conclusion of the round three, the YMI Superbike Championship sees three YRT supported riders inside the top ten with Falzon leading the charge with 139-points, Halliday moving from ninth to seventh in title fight with 84-points, while Wayne Maxwell hold second on his YRT backed machine.

Yamaha currently lead the manufacturers cup in the ASBK with 193 points, a whopping 121 points ahead of second place and again demonstrating the Yamaha R1 is the bike of choice in the Superbike category.

The fourth round of the series at Hidden Valley will run from 6-9 July.