Image: Foremost Media.

Yamaha Racing Team’s Mike Jones has detailed the changes made after practice at Queensland Raceway that helped him fight for victory in the third round of the 2023 Mi-Bike Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK).

Jones dominated the event in 2022 but admittedly was chasing the next few tenths ahead of qualifying this year to be able to challenge the record-setting pace of Troy Herfoss (Penrite Honda Racing).

Come to qualifying Saturday afternoon, Jones missed pole position by just 0.104s and was part of a thrilling fight with Herfoss in both 16-lap races on Sunday, finishing no greater than 0.115s from the lead on his way to securing second overall with a 2-2 scorecard.

“Ultimately, we worked through some electronic changes and some chassis changes with the suspension,” Jones said to CycleOnline. “We made a small adjustment with the electronics, just to give it a little bit more control, so that way then it was not trying to get out of control when I was trying to rip the throttle open. That made things a lot better.

“Also too, just a small little adjustment to the front fork which just helped me on the braking here because we spend so much time on the brake. That change at the front just really helped the balance of the bike, pushed the weight to the back and helped give me some grip on the exit of the turn.

“Ultimately, those were the key changes that gave me the difference and I put it down to my crew chief Dylan spending hours, staying up to early hours of the morning reading lines on the data to come to the conclusion that we needed to focus on the front of the bike, not the back of the bike like I was trying to tell him [laughs].”

Jones gained a solid haul of points from Queensland which elevates him to fifth in the championship standings after the misfortune in Sydney. The ASBK Championship now moves to Hidden Valley, Darwin between 16-18 June for round four of the 2023 season, and notably, Jones took the overall win at the venue last year.