Image: Foremost Media.

Penrite Honda Racing has made its shock switch from Michelin back to Pirelli tyres official as the 2022 Mi-Bike Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK) opens at Phillip Island today.

It was highly-speculated in the latter stages of the pre-season that sole team rider Troy Herfoss had been testing on Pirelli and a transition could be on the horizon.

That was finally confirmed this morning in the opening practice of the new season when Herfoss surfaced with Pirelli tyres, complete with branding on the bike and his race suit. It comes following two years with Michelin, appearing relatively successful until this sudden change back to the more widely-used Pirelli brand.

During both the shortened 2020 and 2021 seasons, Herfoss won a total of six premier class races with Michelin, including a single round victory at Wakefield Park. He is still recovering from serious injuries sustained in Darwin last year, winning race one before falling on the opening lap of the second race.

“We had a fantastic two years with Michelin, but this year we were the only guys to be using the Michelin tyres,” Penrite Honda Racing team owner Deon Coote told CycleOnline.

“After what happened at the end of last year, for Troy’s mental game we decided to go Pirelli based on his confidence of using a similar product to his competitors.”

Michelin made a significant return to the ASBK paddock in 2020 with national distributor Gas Imports, led by Doug Sharp and Alex Briggs, who both have tremendous grand prix experience and a long-standing association with the Michelin brand.

Herfoss’ move sees the single-rider Penrite Honda team join fellow factory effort Yamaha Racing Team in transferring to Pirelli this year, the latter after a season on Dunlop tyres. It means that each of the top-level ASBK contenders are now using the Italian brand.

Michelin was made aware of Honda’s decision earlier this month, however, remains committed to its involvement in the series. Its Superbike presence will continue with Chandler Cooper, while highly-rated Supersport talent Senna Agius is also a notable rider to be equipped with the brand this weekend.

This morning’s first session saw Herfoss post the 10th-fastest lap-time overall, his 1m34.238s being 2.859s from Ducati-mounted pace-setter Wayne Maxwell’s 1m31.379s. That benchmark was well-beneath the current lap record of 1m31.881s set by Mike Jones in 2019.