Overall winners Jones and Nahlous recall round four in Queensland.
Yamaha Racing Team’s Mike Jones secured maximum points in the fourth round of the 2024 Mi-Bike Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK) at Morgan Park, the victory closing him to within 17 points of series leader Josh Waters. In the Supersport category, it was series points leader Jonathan Nahlous who came out on top of what was a dramatic weekend of Supersport racing. CycleOnline caught up with both riders after the races for this Debrief feature.
Superbike
Superbike winner here at Morgan Park, congratulations Mike! Take us through your weekend.
Thanks mate. Yeah look, it was a challenging weekend. We weren’t quite as strong in the practice sessions as what we were hoping to be. But come the final practice, we found some stuff with the bike and I was really happy going into the races. That led us to a good qualifying, although Q2 was affected by the red flag and tricky conditions. But to start both races from third and be on the front row of the grid was super critical, and then heading into those races, ultimately for me just having that little bit more experience than Max [Stauffer] and Broc [Pearson], I was able to come away with both race wins. That was super important in terms of the championship, we’ve closed that points gap back down now. So yeah, a very critical two rounds for us getting the win at Queensland Raceway and here at Morgan Park and clawing back points in the championship. I’m excited for the rest of the rounds.
Both races today played out fairly similarly with you applying the pressure, then making the pass into the lead about halfway through the races. Can you take us through the mindset or how you’re planning those scenarios in your head?
Starting behind both Max and Broc – they both start really well – for me it was a matter of just sitting in, cause when the tyres are fresh they can really do the fast times and set the pace. So it was okay to kind of sit in there for a bit, we pulled a bit of a gap over some of the guys behind us, so that was all sweet. But ultimately, having good track knowledge and that little bit more experience to look after the tyre meant that I could make those passes, particularly in that first race. You know, that just worked out perfectly. The second race was a little more challenging, I felt like Broc had learnt from that first race and was keeping that pressure on all the way through the last lap.
That final lap of race two was a nail-biter, can you take us through that? Did you feel composed, or an elevation of heart rate under that pressure, how did that work out for you?
In a situation like that, where you feel like you’ve got it under control, and then coming into the last two laps knowing that you’ve got a dogfight to the line. For me, it’s the opposite of having a high heart rate and getting nervous, it’s more that it makes you angry and determined. You get really hungry and become sort of a killer almost, you’re looking for any chance and trying to string the corners together to get a good run on the guy in front of you to be able to make that pass. Racing is very unpredictable, you don’t know what will happen but you just give it your best. You have to rely on your skillset and experience to take you there to the line.
Final question. Earlier in the weekend, you mentioned making some changes and trying some things with the bike… where did that come from? Is that something you guys have been working on, and what were those changes?
A lot of that is me just trying to refine the bike further, I’m forever trying to look for that little improvement and am always looking to do better. So yeah, at the test, we were kind of looking at the track, like we know it’s a bumpy circuit and that it’s tricky to get a clean lap – or string laps together – so we’re just looking to see if we can get the bike to ride the bumps a little better. We made some suspension changes, and whilst it felt better during the test, once it came time to race, it just didn’t really work. We ended up reverting back to what we had last year and we were able to go faster with that. But ultimately, that’s what we tried and where we ended up.
Thanks Mike, and congratulations again. We’ll see you at Phillip Island!
Thanks mate, looking forward to it.
Supersport
JJ Nahlous, congratulations on the Supersport win here in Queensland. Take me through the weekend for you.
Yeah, we started off pretty strong in Friday practice in the top three, but we knew we had to still improve our times. Qualifying was slow in the morning, but then Q2 was fast, and we knew we had to improve heading into Q2, which we did. We grabbed pole position, which was awesome, that was our second one. Tom [Toparis] was only 0.003s behind, so that was really tight, tighter than I’d like it. He’s a quick rider, so props to him. Race one was an awesome one for me, Tom and I had an awesome battle, but he went down.
Take us through your perspective of that, if you saw it.
Yeah, I didn’t see it. I didn’t know until I saw the red flag, I came into turn 10 and saw the red flag out. The lap before, he made a move on me into turn 10, then I made a move straight back up the inside into 11. I tried to do the perfect lap for the final lap, which was the lap that he crashed. I think he was pushing to try and get me back, but I think it was unfortunate for him with that high side. After that, Tom didn’t come out for race two, unfortunately, but Archie [McDonald] was there. He made a big improvement from race one with his times, he was a lot quicker in that race. He showed me he was there the whole race, and then with a few laps to go, he made the move and passed me. I stuck with him, but I just couldn’t make the pass back.
In the last few weeks, there’s been a bit of controversy around the class with some ECU dramas. What are your thoughts on that?
It’s a bit unfortunate because it’s a very restricted ruling. It’s a bit unfair, cause that ECU is actually really good. Some tracks it’s better than others, like [here at Morgan Park] it’s not as beneficial compared to some other tracks. But yeah, it’s a bit unfortunate, we can’t run it, because it’s too restrictive. Basically, only Tom Toparis can run it. But it is what it is, we just have to be better, and getting the overall here is a good start.
Well congratulations mate, we’ll see you at Phillip Island in a few weeks.
Awesome, thanks!