Yamaha Motor Australia press release:

After four rounds of the Australian Superbike Championship, Yamaha Racing Teams’, Cru Halliday is just one point away from the series lead after another good performance at the Warwick circuit, in Queensland, over the weekend.

Halliday finished fourth at Warwick on the back of his 3-5 results in the two races contested. Halliday started the weekend positively finishing with the second fastest lap time in qualifying and had his Yamaha YZF- R1M lined up on the front row of the grid and ready for action.

Race one saw Halliday slot into third after the opening few laps and the leading three riders broke away from the rest of the pack. Mike Jones edged a few bikes lengths clear at the front while Maxwell and Halliday went to battle for second place. They both flashed across the finish line just a couple of tenths of a second apart with Halliday in third.

Things were on track for another podium finish in race two as Halliday held down a solid third place for the opening 12 laps of the race. But in the latter stages, Mike Jones and Bryan Staring were able to force their way by, relegating Halliday back to fifth.

“Overall, it was a reasonable weekend although my goal for every round is to finish on the podium and I wasn’t able to do that this weekend, so I’m a little disappointed in that.

“But, the positives to take from it are that we are right in the hunt for the championship and the next couple of tracks coming up are to my liking. The team has the bike in great shape and I feel confident on every track we go to but there always that bit extra belief on tracks where I have had success before.

“With the points being so tight at the top, I need to make the most of these coming rounds. Take the race wins when they present themselves and keep racking up the top three results when a win is out of reach. It is the race strategy that has worked for me this year, so I will keep working away at it as there are still plenty of laps left on this championship.”

The weekend was a tough one for team mate Daniel Falzon who put his machine onto row two of the grid after qualifying in P6 but with some fine tuning done, he was confident he could improve his position in the races.

All that went out the window on lap two of the opening race when Falzon went down and was unable to finish the race. He then had time to regroup between the races while the team checked over the bike and before he knew it he was back on the grid and ready for race two.

Things went smoother in race two and Falzon finished without incident in seventh place, although he did suffer from arm pump throughout the race. His DNF – 7 results left him in 13th for the round and now sits in eighth place in the championship.

“This wasn’t the day I was after and I’m really disappointed with my results today. It’s not what I was expecting and not where I belong. I can’t change it now, but what I can do is make sure it doesn’t happen again and I need to redeem myself at the next round.

“And, that’s what I’m going to do,” ends a determined Falzon.

Round five on the 2019 Australian Superbike Championship now moves to Winton in Victoria on September 6-8 where both Yamaha Racing Team riders will be looking to get themselves up on the podium.