Image: Supplied.

GYTR GRT Yamaha’s Remy Gardner scored three top-10 finishes in the Superbike World Championship (WorldSBK) round at Aragon, however, he believes there is potential for much more if he can improve his qualifying.

Gardner qualified ninth in superpole at the Spanish circuit, but dropped a couple of positions at the start of the opening encounter.

The Australian showed strong pace throughout the 18-lap bout to work his way forward to P7, where he would take the checkers, before his superpole race was impacted when he was pushed wide in the opening lap. The number 87 crossed the line in P10, narrowly missing out on ninth which meant he would start the final race from the fourth row, where he would finish P9 to conclude the weekend.

“It was a positive weekend, but also a bit frustrating,” said Gardner. “We felt we had the pace to fight for the top five in the long race, but unfortunately our starting position didn’t help at all. In the Tissot superpole race I started very well, but then I got hit by another rider and I had to take the escape road. So, I had to fight back and I got close to the top nine, just missing out on the last lap.

“In the final feature race it wasn’t easy to fight in the middle of the group, but I’m still taking away valuable data and points. We’re confident that we’ll be back quicker in just few days in Portimão and we’re aware we have to work on qualifying to build strong races.”

Gardner is currently 11th in the 2023 WorldSBK standings as the championship moves to Portimao, Portugal for its penultimate round this weekend.