Image: Keith Muir.

Multiple national champion Matt Walters registered his best Yamaha Motor Finance Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK) presented by Motul Pirelli result of the year in Darwin with sixth overall.

The Swann Insurance Kawasaki rider recovered from a troubled weekend at Winton to go 8-8 at Hidden Valley aboard his privately-run ZX-10R.

It was a significant performance from Walters, who has become the latest premier class contender to switch from Dunlop to Pirelli tyres during the season.

“We struggled a fair bit with qualifying and we couldn’t get the outright one-lap pace,” Walters said. “But the boys got it together and we were more consistent through the races which helped us. We ended up with two eighths, which put us in sixth overall and that’s the best result I’ve had this year.

“Now we can only build on that and keep pushing forward. I’d like to thank Brad Swallow and Glenn Willing as last week we had a fair bit of stuff going on and I rang them with probably two or three days left before we had to leave and they dropped everything. They came and gave us a hand and we’ve had a good weekend, so without those two people I wouldn’t have been able to make it here or do this.”

After focusing on the Australasian championship in recent seasons, Walters will make his first appearance at Morgan Park next time out, hopeful that he can continue his progress that resulted in a pair of breakthrough top 10 finishes in the Top End.

“I haven’t been to Morgan Park so I’ll have to do some laps I reckon, but we’ll endeavour to try and practice on some smaller tracks and go to Morgan Park and see how we go,” he explained. “We’ll keep pushing on and we’ll just see where we end up.”

Walters now moves up the Superbike rankings to 11th in the championship, just three points outside of the top 10 in what is a talent-packed field for 2017.