Image: Marc Jones (Foremost Media).

Western Australia’s Bryan Staring stole the show in race three of the 2018 Yamaha Motor Finance Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK) at Phillip Island, rocketing to the race and round wins.

On debut with Kawasaki BCperformance, Staring showed he will be a force on the Dunlop-equipped ZX-10R this season, topping Josh Waters (Team Suzuki Ecstar) by 0.019s across the line.

It was an entertaining five-rider scrap at the front – six prior to DesmoSport Ducati’s Troy Bayliss dropping off the back of them – to cap-off the weekend, which saw Staring victorious ahead of Waters, Wayne Maxwell (Yamaha Racing Team), Troy Herfoss (Penrite Honda Racing) and Daniel Falzon (Yamaha Racing Team).

With Herfoss, Maxwell and Staring all taking a win each across the three titanic YMF Superbike races, Staring captured the overall by a single point from a consistent Waters, who was in turn tied with Herfoss. After finishing sixth, Bayliss was just short of a fairytale round podium in a phenomenal fourth overall.

Image: Marc Jones (Foremost Media).

There was no denying Cube Racing’s Tom Toparis (Kawasaki) the clean-sweep in Kawasaki Supersport division, winning the round with an untouched 1-1-1 scorecard.

He dominated race three by 4.667s ahead of Cru Halliday (Yamaha Racing Team) and Nic Liminton (Yamaha). Zackary Johnson (Yamaha) and Broc Pearson (Yamaha) completed the top five.

Overall it was Toparis who took the honours and early points lead to commence his second full season on the 600, joined on the podium by Halliday on return to the category and rookie Pearson, who fined across the weekend by also claiming pole position.

The final Supersport 300 race was topped by Cube Racing’s Oli Bayliss (Kawasaki), clinching the overall after going 1-2-1. In the race he won by 0.053s ahead of Locky Taylor (Yamaha), Tom Bramich (Yamaha), Hunter Ford (Yamaha) and Zac Levy (Yamaha). Overall it was Bayliss on top of the rostrum, 10 points up on Bramich, as Taylor was P3.

As per this morning’s report, Zac Levy got the better of Bramich, Taylor, Harry Khouri and Ford in the final YMF R3 Cup race, however it was Bramich who won overall by four points ahead of Levy and Ford – the pair tied following the opening round of the season.

Detailed results