Words: Russell Colvin

The third round of the 2017 Yamaha Motor Finance Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK) presented by Motul Pirelli saw Yamaha Racing Team (YRT) and Wayne Maxwell take a clean-sweep with pole position, two race wins and the lap record, which has put YRT and Maxwell right back into title contention as the series takes a two-month break. YRT team manager John Redding details how the team’s season has gone thus far from his point of view and looks towards the next round of the series, which takes place at Darwin’s Hidden Valley Raceway.

Image: Russell Colvin (YRT).

This round win for both Yamaha Racing Team and Wayne Maxwell must be a fantastic way to bounce back after what has been an up and down start to the 2017 season. Can you give us your view what the year has been like this far from your point of view?

Obviously, the start to the championship wasn’t ideal with both Wayne and Glenn [Allerton] having crashes in one of the three races at Phillip Island. Round one was probably one of our worst rounds for a while, but there were some positive signs at Wakefield Park and some progress was made there. In saying that, the weather did hinder our results. Thankfully, the weather didn’t get in the way at Winton, so it was a good weekend and we were able to make gains in the championship. It’s a great for both Wayne and the team to come back in the way they did with pole position and two race wins and get closer to the championship lead. I couldn’t wish for anything better than a weekend like Winton.

From your time being at the helm of the Yamaha Racing Team, where do you rank that weekend at Winton?

I guess when we were racing in the Australasian Superbike Championship (ASC) we had a lot of similar weekends like Winton, where we won every race, got the lap records and so on, which was great. However, this is probably one of the best weekends that the YRT team have had in the ASBK series. We’re really happy about the weekend we had at Winton and we would like to repeat that many times if we can.

Image: Alex Gobert (Foremost Media).

From Winton, the ASBK series heads to Darwin’s Hidden Valley Raceway, where Wayne has had some good finishes up there with other teams in the past. More importantly, Glenn should be back for round four. Can you give us your thoughts for the next round?

With no-one being up to Hidden Valley in a while, it will be interesting to see how various riders and bikes respond to the track and the tyres as well, so there are lots of questions marks over Darwin because we haven’t been there for a while. I would like to hope that Wayne can continue the roll that he is on – I guess we’ll have to wait and see. In regards to Glenn, we expect him to be back, however until he starts riding we won’t really know where he is until then. Obviously, Glenn will need to be signed off from RACESAFE and the doctors, but he expects to be back and we expect him to be back as well.

The last time Yamaha Racing Team raced at Hidden Valley Raceway was in 2011, when it was the factory Supersport team with both Kev Curtain and Rick Olson. That weekend saw Kev winning the round overall with Rick finishing in third place. What can YRT bring to Darwin in regards to previous knowledge from the past years when the team has raced there?

None. We really can’t translate anything from our previous experiences up there, so it will be a whole new ball-game. We will just have to treat it as we are going to a track that the team has never been to before. The YRT team will just have to hit the ground running as soon as possible and get as much time on the track as we can.