Moto3 World Championship regular Joel Kelso has described the switch to the BMW M 1000 RR as ‘huge ‘, the Livson Racing rider coming to grips with the litrebike in his one-off 2022 Mi-Bike Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK) appearance at The Bend.

This year, Kelso completed his maiden campaign in the MotoGP paddock 21st in the lightweight class after missing multiple rounds due to injury, achieving a best result of P8 at the Australian GP.

Having returned home to Australia for the European winter break, Kelso was offered the opportunity by long-time supporter and Livson Racing team owner Nathan Spiteri to compete on a superbike.

With over triple the horsepower and much more weight than he is accustomed to, Kelso faces a steep learning curve across the ASBK finale, having very limited time on the M 1000 RR  in the build-up to the event.

“It’s huge, just the weight of the bike – we did 10 laps then and it felt like a race,” Kelso explained to CycleOnline. “We’re getting tired, it’s demanding but we are enjoying ourselves.

“I had two fifteen-minute sessions [on the bike prior to The Bend] and we got a couple of sessions on it then. We don’t expect anything big, we are just out here for fun. We will see how far we get when we get to the end of the weekend.”

At the completion of Friday’s second free practice session Kelso finished 16th notching a 1m54.621, as Cru Halliday (Yamaha Racing Team) is the current pace-sitter courtesy of a 1m51.518s. Free practice three takes place this afternoon at 4:30 pm local time.

Kelso’s future is already confirmed for 2023, with the number 66 to join CFMOTO Racing to continue in the Moto3 World Championship.