Image: Russell Colvin.

Mike Jones will be carrying some serious confidence into the weekend after topping the timesheets this morning, as day two of round one of the Yamaha Motor Finance Australian Superbike Championship presented by Motul Pirelli gets underway.

Despite being the final class to hit the track for this morning’s practice sessions, DesmoSport Ducati’s Jones topped the Australian Superbike times with a fast lap of 1m33.514s.

Yamaha Racing Team’s Glenn Allerton slotted into second with a 1m33.765s, followed by Crankt Protien Honda Racing’s Jamie Stauffer, who was third fastest with a 1m33.901s.

Jones, who will also race as a wildcard entrant in the World Superbike category this weekend, was elated after his second Australian Superbike practice session.

“It was great to get the second ASBK practice session done and all of my time on the track seems to be paying off,” Jones said. “Topping the Superbike times this morning feels good, especially with ASBK qualifying this afternoon.

“The bike feels really good, I am riding two different bikes this weekend and the team have worked really hard to get the set-up of the Australian Superbike perfect. Hopefully after this morning’s session we can finish the day with a good qualifying position on the grid.

“The conditions today on track are pretty good, it’s a little bit windy but the track temperature isn’t too bad and as long as the rain stays away we should be in for a good qualifying session this afternoon.”

The Supersport category was the third class to hit the circuit for their second free practice this morning and at the conclusion of the 15-minute session Mark Chiodo took the top time with 1m38.020s on his Triumph machine.

Following closely behind was yesterday’s fastest Supersport rider, Troy Guenther at 1m38.159s and in third was Kyle Buckley with a 1m38.697s.

“This morning I used my old tyres from yesterday, just to get warmed up for qualifying later on and to get a feel of the bike moving around a little bit before this afternoons qualifying session with a lot of grip,” he said.

“I feel a lot more confident after yesterday I was pretty upset after I was 1.3 seconds off the front rider laptime, but I was still in second place, so quite a few of us were a fair way off. Today has been better to get back there and get some motivation back.”

When the Moto3/125GP class headed out for their second practice session this morning, Brian Houghton took the fastest time with a 1m44.717s, with Locky Taylor two seconds behind, followed by Tayla Relph.

In the Period 5/6 Historics category, it was Dean Oughtred who once again topped the times on his Suzuki with a 1m43.083s lap ahead of Murray Clark and Craig Ditchburn.

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