Image: Russell Colvin.

The official Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK) test at Phillip Island ranks as the ‘worst possible form guide’, according to Penrite Honda Racing’s Troy Herfoss.

In continuing to rebuild at the ASBK pre-season test, finishing down the order in P15 at the conclusion of the two days, it’s expected the two-time series champion will be stronger later this month.

Herfoss, 34, progressed throughout the weather-impacted two days, improving by just over two seconds from the first dry session on day one to the final dry outing on the second day and recording an eventual best lap of 1m34.507s – near three seconds from arch-rival Wayne Maxwell atop the charts.

Still on the road to complete fitness, Herfoss admittedly was still suffering physically – the higher speed nature of the Phillip Island circuit providing its challenges – however, he remains calm in referencing that performance at the pre-season test doesn’t always translate come race weekend.

“I’m lucky the team knows me well and they know what I am after,” Herfoss explained. “If I could get a bit of feeling on the edge of the [Michelin] tyre, I could go from there.

“We’ve sort of, this afternoon and this morning, started to feel like more normal and the problem is now I can go a little bit faster, the force through the right-hand turns, to be honest I’m suffering a little bit. Just that last session I done half-lap efforts, so to speak…

“It looks like the guys that are doing consistent laps, they aren’t going as fast as previous years – the track may have gone away from us a bit. We will just keep working.

“I always find in all of my years racing, the worst possible form guide is the ASBK test at Phillip Island – let’s just get through here and get to the race meeting and see what happens.”

Herfoss has just under a month to continue to improve before the 2022 ASBK championship takes off at Phillip Island between 25-27 February.