Image: Adam Spence (Foremost Media).

Defending Australian Superbike champion Troy Herfoss endured a difficult Friday in Sydney as his Crankt Protein Honda Racing crew work to extract more out of the new CBR1000RR SP2.

Although the basis of the chassis is similar to last year’s title-winning SP, it’s understood that electronic adjustment limitations are affecting the factory Honda team’s progression in the early stages of development at Eastern Creek.

Herfoss was all the way down in 11th position at the conclusion of Friday’s three practice sessions, with his 1m32.389s lap-time a full 1.708s from pace-setter and chief title rival Wayne Maxwell (Yamaha Racing Team).

“We’re working through things, but I’m not happy at all with where we’re at,” Herfoss told CycleOnline.com.au. “We’ve gone down a few different roads today, so we will sit down tonight and work out where we’re going to go tomorrow.

“I’m just really disappointed with how things are going and make sure we’re on top of things in the morning. I have had Fridays like this, but it’s not something that should be happening this late in the season. Anyway, we just have to be better tomorrow.”

With the heavily-updated CBR1000RR SP2 arriving prior to Darwin’s fourth round in July, Sydney Motorsport Park has been the most challenging circuit with the new bike yet as the Shaun Clarke-managed squad searches for a solution to move forward prior to qualifying on Saturday.

“We’re just stuck with electronics and we can’t change anything,” he explained. “What the throttle is doing, we have to set the bike up around that, so without going into too much detail, we’ve got our hands tied behind our back at the moment.”

After uncharacteristically crashing out of race one and ending up 10th overall at Morgan Park, Herfoss enters this weekend’s penultimate round of the championship five points in arrears of Maxwell in the standings.