News 1 Mar 2017

Top five finishes encouraging for Suzuki and Waters

Consistent results in ASBK races two and three display potential.

Image: Keith Muir.

Team Suzuki Ecstar’s 11th-hour Yamaha Motor Finance Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK) entry went impressively-well for Josh Waters aboard the all-new GSX-R1000R at Phillip Island on debut.

Considering he had zero testing aboard the near-stock GSX-R1000R and completed his lone laps on a production model at Suzuki’s world launch, dual ASBK champion Waters was quickly up to speed and ended up 10th overall despite a DNF.

A holed radiator ruled him out of the opening encounter on Saturday while he was in the front group, however the team was able to rectify any damage done by Sunday’s pair of national races to record fifth-place finishes in both.

“It was quite good with no testing and I haven’t raced a bike since October at the GP,” Waters told CycleOnline.com.au. “My expectations were like normal, to go better, but the team has done an amazing job to get this bike ready. It is amazing.

“The bike really is straight out of the box. It’s got a standard rear shock in it, we don’t have a different spring, we don’t have an ECU so can’t tune it and we’ve got a street exhaust on it. It’s a pretty cool bike, so I look forward to when we get some more parts. To be up there in the top five, I think that was good.”

With Wakefield Park’s second round right around the corner on 17-19 March, it’s expected Team Suzuki Ecstar will carry out its next phase of development in what is the home race of the Canberra Motorcycle Centre-operated dealer team.

“A lot depends on when we get parts, but I’d like to ride more and I need to ride at Wakefield. I know a lot of our main competition have done test days there, so I need to do some more laps at any track, so yeah!”

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