Image: Keith Muir.

After qualifying second fastest, Team Suzuki Ecstar’s Josh Waters is expecting to record his best finish of the year today at Darwin’s fourth round of the 2017 Yamaha Motor Finance Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK) presented by Motul Pirelli.

Waters, who dominated the premier class the last time he visited the Northern Territory, expressed his confidence at the Hidden Valley circuit, stating it’s his most favoured venue on the ASBK calendar.

“All weekend I’ve been in the top three which is good, and in the dying stages of qualifying I just got pipped for pole,” Waters explained to CycleOnline.com.au. “It’s definitely good, but we could still be better. Hopefully the changes we make this morning will put us in the right direction for two hard races.

“I’d love to win two races, but there’s a lot of other guys who want to do the same. To get on the podium would be great for us, it would be our first podium for the year, so we’ll just see how it goes. It’s one of my favourite tracks to come to, probably my favourite on the calendar.”

This weekend’s round marks the first for the Victorian aboard an up-spec GSX-R1000R, which he believes has particularly improved the front-end feeling of the bike, although he’s remaining level-headed about the bikes performance against his rivals.

“It’s mainly aftermarket parts that we’ve now been able to get,” he continued. “There’s been one part that’s helped a lot, and the new suspension is really good in the front – the feeling is really good and I think that’s helped a lot.

“I haven’t followed anyone, so I don’t know how fast the bike is against anyone else, I know a lot of the other guys have been doing that, but in the race we’re all going to be following each other.”

The Superbike category will hit the track today at 9:40am for the warm-up session, before taking on two 17-lap races throughout the course of the day.