Starting from 10th on the grid meant Broc Pearson had his work cut at Hidden Valley but the DesmoSport Ducati rider was able to achieve a season-best P5 in race three, marking a step in the right direction ahead of an important upcoming round at Morgan Park.

It was a tough Saturday for the Queensland-based rider at round four as his performance in race one was limited by a technical issue causing reduced power and he limped home to a P12 finish.

An improved Sunday saw the former Australian Supersport champion work his way forward to P6 in race two, later completing the weekend with a solid fifth-place result in the final outing – his best result in the season to date.

“It was good to see that we recovered in the races from a bit of a poor start, starting from 10th, so I recovered pretty well and I was happy about that,” Pearson explained to CycleOnline. “I’ve just got to work on my qualifying and that, obviously could have changed the result for the races.”

Pearson had the opportunity to test at the venue before the race, and after a positive outing in the build-up to Darwin he was left disappointed with how the fourth round got underway.

“It was a bummer because we got there for a test a month ago and it went really well,” Pearson added. “We took the right step forward to be the most recent rider that has rode there, we just had a really difficult Friday and Saturday with some bike problems and that.

“We ended up on the back foot on Sunday so it was really disappointing that we ended up in that situation and I had to start the races from 10th. It was nice to recover and nice to see some sort of pace, I think my race pace was good, it always is good I just need to work on a bit of speed on a brand new tyre –  I definitely seem to struggle there compared to the front guys.

“My goal always this year was to get in the top five super early in the season, it’s obviously taken us a while but at least I’ve ticked it off that weekend.  Now that I have ticked off a top five, I need to really work on getting on the box.”

Round five of the 2023 Mi-Bike Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK) takes place at Morgan Park, Queensland, on 14-16 July. It was at the Warwick-based venue last year that Pearson debuted with the DesmoSport Ducati team, making an immediate impact with a 4-4 scorecard. He now looks ahead to a strong result in the upcoming round to help boost his second half of the season.

“I always thought like Morgan Park would be my best round of the year, and I thought to be honest I would have been battling closer to the front prior to Morgan Park,” Pearson added.

“So I thought Morgan Park, maybe I can be battling for a win, I thought that may have been achievable. I still think it is, I still think that my pace there is probably going to be really good, so I think like the importance there is that I just need to be able to get the confidence like whenever you leave an event and you do well, sometimes you can just carry it to the tracks where you seem to struggle.

“I am really looking to get a confidence boost out of that weekend, mix it with the front guys. I think if we can have a good result at Morgan Park, it should be able to carry on throughout the year.”