Josh Waters is the ASBK points leader after Phillip Island's opening round

Heading into Phillip Island’s opening round of the Australian Superbike Championship last weekend, not many would have predicted that fulltime Superbike rookie Josh Waters would be leading the points at the end of the round for Team Joe Rocket Suzuki.

That’s exactly what happened thanks to a stunning opening championship-scoring race victory in damp conditions on Sunday morning, before backing it up with a solid third place in the afternoon’s dry outing.

We caught up with the likeable 22-year-old from Mildura to see how it feels to take his first Superbike victory.

You were able to take the victory for the opening round of the season, how surprised are you right now?

Yeah, I’m really surprised. It was always going to be tough after seeing how quick the Honda boys were after the opening day, but I know that I can run with them because when I’m near them on the track I can.

I need to keep working hard, it’s not going to be easy, because both of them guys [Glenn Allerton and Wayne Maxwell] are riding unbelievable at the moment, and are both pushing each other really hard.

But I’m sure that Shawn and myself will be able to work as a team and keep improving the bike for the next round.

In the damp opening race you pulled out a good lead and won in the wet, so you must be pretty comfortable and have a good feel for the GSX-R1000 Superbike already.

I’d only ridden it twice before the weekend and that race was actually the first time I’d ridden a Superbike in the wet. On the warm up lap I thought ‘geez, I’m in trouble now’, but I got the feel of it and scraped my knee a couple of times on the warm up lap.

Once the race come I wasn’t giving it a lot of throttle, it kind of reminded me of when I was racing flat track on the big two-strokes [laughs].

You were fast in the dry in Sunday afternoon’s race too, with a third place, which must have been nice to back up the wet victory.

The more time I have on the Superbike the better I feel, so it was good to get on the podium in the second race, which was enough to take the round win. So I’m confident I can keep improving with more races and time riding the bike. It’s a competitive field this year so to be up the front already is a good feeling.

Considering you’ve just moved up to the Superbike full time, it must be a big confidence booster to get that first win out of the way?

For sure. It’s good that you know all of the training that you’ve been doing has paid off and it’s given me a lot more confidence heading into the second round in Tasmania. We need to keep working hard though, there’s still a long season to go. It’s not going to be easy, but if it was then everybody would be doing it.