Image: Russell Colvin.

Yamaha Racing Team’s Wayne Maxwell has strengthened his chances of earning vice champion honours this weekend after claiming pole position at Phillip Island’s seventh round of the Yamaha Motor Finance Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK).

Maxwell lodged a stellar lap-time of 1m32.096s, breaking the five-year long lap record, to defeat 2017 ASBK champion Josh Waters (Team Suzuki Ecstar) by the narrowest of margins, just 0.010s separating the talented duo.

Western Australian Bryan Staring (Kawasaki BCperformance) delivered a promising lap of 1m32.398s for third, as Troy Bayliss (DesmoSport Ducati) and current champion Troy Herfoss (Penrite Honda Racing) completed the top five.

Sixth was credited to Glenn Allerton (Next Gen Motorsport) on return from injury, followed by Matt Walters (Swann Insurance Kawasaki), Daniel Falzon (Yamaha Racing Team), Ted Collins (Next Gen Motorsport) and Arthur Sissis (Honda).

Image: Russell Colvin.

In the Supersport category, recently-crowned champion Cru Halliday (Yamaha Racing Team) continued to stamp his dominance with the fastest lap of 1m36.207s to claim yet another pole position, closely followed by Honda-mounted Damon Rees, who was just 0.094s off pole.

Cube Racing’s Tom Toparis rounded out the top three with a 1m36.684s, as the top five was concluded by Callum Spriggs (Yamaha) and Scott Nicholson (Next Gen Motorsports).

The opening Supersport 300 race saw Yamaha’s Hunter Ford emerge victorious after topping the timesheets in qualifying earlier in the day. The youthful talent edged out Zecy Levy (Yamaha) by slender .006s in what was an incredible race, as Tom Bramich (Yamaha) locked out the first three.

Aaron Morris (Yamaha) captured victory in race one of the Superbike Masters over Adrian Digiandomenico (Yamaha) and Jason Cullen (Yamaha), while the Yamaha R3 Cup was taken out by Locky Taylor (Yamaha) followed by Levy and Ford.

Detailed results