Nassif emerges with the Supersport 300 victory in round five of ASBK.
Yamaha-mounted Olly Simpson escaped the chaos at Phillip Island’s fifth round of the 2024 Mi-bike Australian Superbike Championship to emerge with the Supersport overall victory, while it was Will Nassif (Yamaha) who broke through to win the Supersport 300 category.
It was pole-sitter Simpson who charged to the early lead as an incident at the front of the field saw Mark Chiodo (Honda) off-track in his return to racing, while points leader Jonathan Nahlous (Yamaha) and Archie McDonald (Stop and Seal Racing) settled into position two and three.
Nahlous made the move to P1 early, and McDonald followed a number of laps later to pass Simpson for second. The field steadied as Nahlous claimed a convincing win over McDonald and Simpson, while the top five was rounded out by Jake Farnsworth (Yamaha) and Jack Favelle (Yamaha).
Sixth through to 10th were taken out by Tom Bramich (Yamaha), Hayden Nelson (Kawasaki), Marcus Hamod (Honda), Hunter Ford (Yamaha), and Glenn Nelson (Yamaha).
Race two was a chaotic affair both before and after the initial restart, which saw the outing reduced to eight laps. On the restart, Nahlous went down just moments into race, taking McDonald in the process to rule both riders out of the race.
Simpson and Farnsworth took advantage to control the race, the pair engaging in a thrilling battle that came right down to the chequered flag – just 0.016s separating them, but it was Simpson who prevailed.
Bramich was third followed by Jack Mahaffy (Yamaha) and Favelle, while the top 10 was locked out by Nelson, Glenn Nelson (Stop and Seal Racing), Hamod, Scott Nicholson (Yamaha), and Brandon Demmery (Kawasaki).
Simpson claimed the overall win, joined on the podium by Farnsworth and Bramich, as Nahlous still maintains the championship lead with a 20-point advantage over Simpson.
In the Supersport 300 category, Nassif emerged victorious with a 3-3-1 scorecard, joined on the podium by Scott Nicholson (Kawasaki) and Josh Newman (Kawasaki) – the latter stretching his championship lead to 19 points.
The ASBK returns to action on 4-6 October at One Raceway in New South Wales for the penultimate round of the series.