2007 Australian Supersport Champion Jason O’Halloran is one of a number of our local stars making an impact on the international stage.

Since moving full-time to England, O’Halloran has enjoyed a number of successful seasons within the British Superbike Championship paddock, racing Superbikes, Supersport and the Superstock 1000 class.

Finishing second in the Superstock 1000 class with Samsung Honda in 2012, O’Halloran had been eyeing a move to the Superbike ranks, but, eager to remain an established rider within his team, chose to contest a full Supersport season aboard the team’s CBR600RR.

The proven competitor has shown flashes of brilliance but has been plagued by a run of bad luck in the opening stages.

We caught up with Jason following a consistent weekend at Brands Hatch, where, for the first time, his luck held out.

Jason O’Halloran is hopeful his share of bad luck is behind him and the results continue to build in the Supersport class.

Jason, we’ve been following your progress closely this year and it’s hard to believe some of the bad luck situations you’ve found yourself in. You obviously wouldn’t have pictured the first rounds of the championship to play out in such a way?

Yeah it’s been, to be honest a bit of a shit start. The testing at the start of the year, leading into the championship, was what hurt us the most. It was obviously really cold and not ideal. 90 percent of our competitors went out to Spain and tested there in some decent weather and we didn’t. The reason I didn’t because, as we are a Superbike team, you are not supposed to go to Spain testing, where Supersport is still open. We were sort of on the back foot from the start. I had some good test sessions but seemed to be making progress.

There have been some issues with the air bleed system which we’ve had to manage throughout the season. In testing there is only so much you can account for and as the races have gone on we’ve had to try to overcome a few problems.

As you mention we’ve had our fair share of bad luck, all the way back to Oulton Park really. The quick shifter broke which was causing the bike to cut-out about 10 or 11 times a lap right when we were there and fighting for a podium. At Knockhill I got taken out on the warm-up lap when we believe we had podium pace, which affected our start for the second row. I started from row six and the battery went flat in the race. I also got hit which caused some damage.

We moved on to Snetterton where we had a good test. Race one was okay but I was still really struggling with corner entry there. I just couldn’t stop the bike at the hairpins and didn’t feel I was in control of the bike which made me start braking a bit earlier and I was quite easy to pass. I was fighting for second in the feature race and had the belly pan ripped off and was shown the black and orange flag. So the bad luck was kind of all coming at once.

Brands Hatch was a turnaround of sorts for you, highlighted by a great qualifying position. Can you run us through the stages prior to the races?

I sort of went in there fairly determined to make things happen. I’d had a fairly dismal start to the season. It was a bit of a weird weekend just because of the way they do things at the track. Because of the houses nearby we can’t make as much noise so we didn’t actually get the full round on the GP circuit, only on the Indy track. I led most of the practice session and ended up second at the end by less than a tenth.

Even though it’s a different circuit it is still half the circuit we use and I knew the bike was okay. The first time out on the GP circuit we had a few little issues, I don’t know if it was the air bleed problem again but there was something there and it was right when you really need the front-end feel at the fast section.

O’Halloran chose to remain within the Samsung Honda ranks for 2013, which meant a step sidewards to the Supersport bike.

I was near the front for pretty much the whole session in qualifying. We went for our second tyre after making some adjustments to the rear which gave me some feel back and I managed to put in a lap for second. I was feeling confident after that, that is my best qualifying for the year and I felt strong.

There was a change of format for the round which saw the class contest its sprint and feature races on the same day. How did this affect your races given the varying weather on Saturday and Sunday?

The weather was really hot on the Saturday and we had two options for the rear, the SC0 and the SC1. The Pirellis sort of work a bit opposite to what you’d normally think. When it’s really hot the soft tyre works good and you get it to last, whereas when it’s cold the hard tyre is better for grip. It was hot so we got some time in on the soft tyre that day but for this round the format had changed and we didn’t race on the Saturday.

The sprint race was moved to Sunday, and it was a lot cooler. The sun wasn’t out and the track temp was probably down 10 or 12 degrees. We decided to go with the harder tyre which we hadn’t really done much on all weekend. We probably could have done with changing the setting a little to adjust for some more grip but that’s all experience which we have learnt from.

Can you talk us through the opening race? From the time sheets the margin was minimal between the leaders. Was it good to get a solid start in to begin the day?

I had a good race. I led and was in the front group for most of it. I only finished 1.2 seconds off the win, and ended up fifth, which shows how close it was. There was probably six or seven of us in the lead group which kind of broke down to a top five in the last few laps. I struggled a bit for rear grip and I was also struggling for speed. It just seemed to be a bit too easy for the riders around to pass me. I would lead going onto the straight and come off in third. I was losing out on the corners and on the long straights which made it hard. When I was leading they’d pass me and when I was behind I couldn’t get their draft. But just to finish in that lead group was positive. It was a good race and one of the best we’ve had all year.

The way the Supersport class is structured sees the feature race based off the lap times to set the grid. This was a disadvantage to you, how did you managed to fight back?

I ended up ninth on the grid for the feature race which was a bummer really. I think there was about six of us right on the same lap time and I was disappointed to be back there on row three. I got a mega start, I think I was maybe fifth or sixth into turn one, and was in the lead group from the beginning until the end again. I was only 1.8 seconds off the win, so a similar margin to the first race. I made a big mistake in the middle of the race and dropped back a bit but managed to make it up a bit later on.

I was only lacking around a tenth of a lap so it shows just how close we’re getting. Being so tight and close, with such a high level, then the tenths of a second make a huge difference. The team is working hard to make up that gap and it’s a confidence booster for us to come away with two fifths, which is our best overall result from a weekend so far.