Image: Supplied.

A sixth-place finish in race two at Assen marks the best result of Remy Gardner’s rookie Superbike World Championship (WorldSBK) campaign to date and the Australian has the firm target of improving his qualifying to help him fight further up the field from the onset.

Gardner delivered promising form through practice in the dry on Friday and then topped Saturday’s FP3 on a wet track by over seven-tenths of a second.

Qualifying wasn’t Gardner’s strongest point of the weekend, starting 11th for Saturday’s opening race after posting a 1m34.203s in the Superpole session, his time just over six tenths from Alvaro Bautista’s (Aruba.it Racing Ducati) benchmark.

The number 87 was able to move forwards and finish P8 in race one, but was left to recover in the shortened eight-lap Superpole race after he was forced to go wide on lap two. He ultimately finished that encounter in P12, but it meant he was unable to improve his grid spot for race two later that afternoon.

A good first lap in the final race of the Dutch round saw Gardner elevate to eighth, but he was shuffled back the following lap by Team HRC duo Iker Lecuona and Xavi Vierge.

Gardner picked off Lecuona as the race progressed and later made his way by Scott Redding (ROKiT BMW Motorrad WorldSBK Team) to secure P6, where he finished the race to add another 10 points to his 2023 account.

“Not a bad race two, although unfortunately, we had bad luck in the sprint race,” said Gardner. “For sure we need to work on our qualifying sessions, once again starting from behind didn’t help. In the last feature race, our pace was fine and I enjoyed it.

“The tyre choice was the correct one in my opinion, it was just a shame I lost a lot of time in the opening laps as I got forced wide, but we were still able to perform a good recovery. Let’s keep rolling and progress further, we know there’s potential.”

Three rounds into his rookie WorldSBK campaign, Gardner is 11th in the championship standings as the series moves to Cataluyna, Spain, for round four on 5-7 May.