DesmoSport Ducati press release:

DesmoSport Ducati’s Callum Spriggs will enter Sunday’s racing at Darwin’s fourth round of the 2017 Australian Superbike Championship optimistic despite a challenging day of qualifying today.

Following a positive day of Free Practice sessions on Friday, the 23-year-old looked to continue improving at Hidden Valley Raceway before a costly mistake saw him crash out of the final session.

“I was hoping to get onto the first three rows, or at least improve my time from yesterday,” said Spriggs. “In the second session I went out with the new rear tyre and on the first flying lap I went into turn one and lost the rear, which high-sided me off the bike.”

Starting out of 16th position tomorrow with best time of 1m07.834s from the first qualifying session of the day, the 1299 Panigale S-mounted rookie remains in high spirits.

“I’ll be starting tomorrow’s races from 16th on the grid and I’ve got a bit of a sore right shoulder, but I reckon I should be ok,” he explained. “I’ll have a good rest tonight and hopefully we’ll have a good race tomorrow.”

Following steady improvement throughout the early stages of the Northern Territory event, team co-owner Ben Henry plans to put the day’s misfortune behind them and regroup for race day.

“Today ended in the gravel trap unfortunately,” Henry said. “But we’ve been going forward all weekend and I was quietly confident today that we were going to take another step forward. I wouldn’t say we didn’t, but we ended up with a bit of bad luck.

“We tried to put a time down and maybe the tyres were a bit cold then up the road he went. That’s just the way it happened today, but tomorrow’s a new day and we should be back in the game I think.”

The opening race for the premier Superbike class is scheduled for Sunday at 11:40am local time, with race two taking off from 2:55pm. Visit www.asbk.com.au for further information on the series.

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