Image: Russell Colvin (YRT).

Yamaha Racing Team’s Wayne Maxwell stormed to pole position in the seventh and final round of the 2017 Yamaha Motor Finance Australian Superbike Championship presented by Motul Pirelli at Phillip Island this afternoon.

Maxwell’s 1m32.587s lap-time was marginally outside of his pole record set in 2013 by a few tenths, taking him to within 14 points of the series lead.

Joining Maxwell on the front row will be round one winner Daniel Falzon (Caterpillar JD Racing Yamaha), just 0.013s outside of the pole, while Josh Waters (Team Suzuki Ecstar Australia) ended up third a further 0.140s in arrears.

Falzon jumped to the top of the time-sheets with 10 minutes remaining in Q2, however it was the final five minutes when times began to tumble – Maxwell matching his scorching pole time on consecutive laps.

The Crankt Protein Honda Racing duo of Bryan Staring and current title-leader Troy Herfoss will start out of fourth and fifth respectively – the final riders within the 1m32s bracket. Sixth was triple champion Glenn Allerton (Yamaha Racing Team) and also within a second of the pole time.

Positions six through 10 were filled by Cru Halliday (IPONE/YMF/YMI Yamaha), Matt Walters (Swann Insurance Kawasaki), Alex Phillis (Apex Civil/Helicraft Racing Yamaha) and Michael Blair (Blair Build/Gosford Classic Car Museum Yamaha).

In the Supersport qualifying it was Victorian Mark Chiodo who led the way, setting a 1m35.330s on his Repsol GAS Racing Triumph to best provisional pole-setter Tom Toparis (Cube Racing Kawasaki) by half a second.

In third to complete the front row will be opening round victor Mason Coote (Yamaha), albeit over two seconds off the pace of the lightning-quick Chiodo. Rounding out the top five was Sam Condon (Yamaha) and Chris Quinn (Yamaha).

Clinching the Supersport 300 pole was KTM-mounted Max Croker, however once the lights went out for race one it was Tom Bramich (Over 300, Yamaha) who won ahead of Oli Bayliss (Up To 300, Kawasaki) and Billy Van Eerde (Over 300, KTM) as the top five crossed the line just 0.329s apart.

The opening R3 Cup race of the weekend late this afternoon belonged to Tommy Edwards (Yamaha) from Hunter Ford (Yamaha) and Jack Mahaffy (Yamaha) – separated by just 0.042s – while in the Moto3/125GP race it was Dylan Whiteside (Honda) who won from Joel Kelso (Honda) and Dallas Skeer (Honda) in the red-flagged affair.

Sunday’s ASBK championship decider will commence with bikes on track from 9:05am, with racing scheduled to start from 10:10am local time.