Longtime championship leader protests Darwin disqualification.
Caterpillar JD Racing Yamaha’s Daniel Falzon endured his most difficult race day yet of the 2017 Yamaha Motor Finance Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK) presented by Motul Pirelli season at Hidden Valley.
Darwin pole-setter Falzon saw his weekend turned upside down when he crashed out of the lead in race one, then crashed again after remounting in an incident with Kawasaki BCperformance rookie Kyle Buckley.
That clash caused a red flag as Buckley was attended to by RACESAFE, with Falzon returning to the pit and making the second part, in which he stormed from the rear of the grid to a hard-fought sixth.
Race officials declared afterwards that the South Australian shouldn’t have been eligible to restart due to his alleged involvement in the stoppage, however the JD Racing team has protested the matter and it remains currently under further investigation by Motorcycling Australia. A hearing took place at the circuit this evening, but an outcome is yet to be confirmed.
“In the crash when I was leading, I think it came down to rider error,” Falzon told CycleOnline.com.au. “We did put down a very good time before it at 1m06.0s, which was almost our qualifying time, and maybe I didn’t compensate for the extra fuel load and pushed the front a little bit too hard. It was just unfortunate.”
Starting from the front again in the second 17-lap affair later this afternoon, Falzon was hindered by front braking issues as a result of the opening race dramas, eventually crossing the stripe in sixth to collect a decent haul of points.
“As far race two, we had quite a strong pace but unfortunately from the crash in race one there was a mechanical problem with the bike,” he explained. “I suffered massive brake-fade from lap two and couldn’t maintain the pace of Josh [Waters] with that problem. We just had to circulate and accept as many points as we could. It’s extremely unfortunate for us, considering we were leading the championship – we’re down, but I most certainly don’t think we’re out.”
The result sees Falzon demoted from the lead to third in the championship standings, 15 points outside of defending champion Troy Herfoss, however if he is reinstated for sixth in the first race from today then the pair will be tied moving onto Morgan Park on 25-27 August.