Image: Foremost Media.

A podium finish at the third round of the 2025 Australian Supersport Championship in Queensland was described as the ‘best case scenario’ for Jack Mahaffy, who was nursing a shoulder injury sustained in the lead-up to the event.

In what was a thrilling round of Supersport action at Queensland Raceway, the Stop and Seal Yamaha rider collected a 2-3 scorecard across the two encounters, which netted him second overall while extending his series points lead to 27, thanks in part to the absence of teammate Archie McDonald.

Strength and endurance were identified as the key difficulties to what was a dislocated shoulder, with Mahaffy – injured the week prior in the Asia Road Racing Championship at Buriram – having to compensate through other parts of his upper-body, particularly in the braking zones.

“I haven’t been in that much pain, let’s say,” Mahaffy told CycleOnline. “It’s been the strength and endurance of the shoulder, and I have noticed that I’m in the wrong position on the bike under the braking zone. Just the upper-body in general has had to compensate, and now the idea is to get back to Melbourne and see how we can get it fixed for Morgan Park.

“I said to my team that I was glad the weekend was over, considering our issues. We got through the weekend, and that [result] was probably the best case scenario. We came into this round with a one-point lead, and now it’s 27, so that’s a huge positive.”

The next round of the ASBK championship will remain in the Sunshine State, taking place in just over a month’s time, with Morgan Park Raceway hosting the fifth stop of the series on June 13-15.

With a perfect podium strike-rate to his credit in 2025 to date, Mahaffy leads the series by 27 points over race two winner Olly Simpson (BCperformance Kawasaki), with McDonald now a further 12 points behind in third after instead electing to contest the opening Stock European Championship round at Estoril, Portugal, on the weekend.