Image: Keith Muir.

Team Suzuki Ecstar’s Josh Waters has set a scorching pace for pole position in Sydney’s round of the 2017 Yamaha Motor Finance Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK) presented by Motul Pirelli.

The dual national champion posted a flying 1m30.197s in the dying moments of qualifying two this afternoon to claim his first pole of the year aboard his GSX-R1000R.

Waters topped the time-sheets for much of the session before Wayne Maxwell (Yamaha Racing Team) took charge, however a late lap in response from Waters saw him regain the top spot by 0.261s.

Completing the front row was Maxwell’s YRT teammate Glenn Allerton, as Crankt Protein Honda Racing duo Bryan Staring and Troy Herfoss – largely improved today – filled the top five.

IPONE/YMF/YMI Yamaha privateer Cru Halliday was sixth and ahead of session one pace-setter Daniel Falzon (Caterpillar JD Racing Yamaha), as both of them were also within the 1m30s. Positions eight through 10 were Corey Turner (DesmoSport Ducati), Matt Walters (Swann Insurance Kawasaki) and Josh Hook (McMartin Racing Ducati).

Image: Keith Muir.

In the Supersport championship it was Repsol GAS Racing Triumph’s Mark Chiodo who took his third pole position in a row at 1m34.028s set in session one, heading Cube Racing rookie Tom Toparis (Kawasaki) and Aaron Morris (Yamaha) in his return to national competition.

Behind the front row in fourth was Sam Muldoon (Kawasaki) in his local stop of the season, as Mason Coote (Yamaha) completed the top five. The top eight riders were all within the 1m34s bracket, setting up a tight pair of races tomorrow.

The Supersport 300 round of racing commenced with pole position-holder Billy Van Eerde (KTM) taking a narrow 0.262s victory ahead of leading Up To 300 entry Oli Bayliss (Kawasaki) and Tommy Edwards (Yamaha).

Edwards managed to go on and win the first R3 Cup race of the round late this afternoon, crossing the line 0.070s ahead of Hunter Ford (Yamaha) and pole-sitter Jack Mahaffy (Yamaha) – the three separated by 0.122s at race’s end.

In the first Moto3/125GP race of the weekend it was pole-setter Dylan Whiteside (Honda) who took a 0.028s victory from Joel Kelso (Honda), with those two a full 34 seconds ahead of third-place finisher Dallas Skeer (Honda).

Bikes will hit the track for morning warm-up sessions on Sunday from 8:30am local time, as a full schedule of racing gets underway from 9:35am.