Following Morgan Park Raceway’s fourth round of the 2025 ASBK season, overall winner Josh Waters extended his points lead to 53 over title rival Mike Jones. Notoriously strong in the Queensland leg of the championship, Jones powered to a convincing win in race two on Sunday, but his earlier DNF in race one has underlying effects on his title aspirations.

Making hay while the sun shines is an idiom that translates to maximizing an opportunity while the odds are in your favour, with many looking at the ASBK’s venture into the Sunny State as a time for Jones and the Yamaha Racing Team to make a dent in Waters’ lead, and tighten things up before the series heads back south.

Suffice it to say, this hasn’t been the case, as McMartin Racing’s defending champion has been the class of the field across all four rounds of the championship to date, with victory at both Queensland Raceway and Morgan Park adding to his winning catalogue at Sydney Motorsport Park and Philip Island in 2025.

Image: Foremost Media.

It’s been nothing short of domination by the number one for the most part this season, with Jones’ final race win last weekend only one of two blotches on his clean sheet – the other arriving with now Ducati-equipped Glenn Allerton’s race two win at QR.

For Jones, an electrical fault during race one on Sunday resulted in a costly retirement, with the three-time ASBK champion ultimately conceding 21 points to Waters at a place he is typically fast and a difficult force to beat. Bouncing back for a convincing race two win – on a secondary motorcycle – did stop some of the bleeding, but it was a bittersweet taste as the round concluded.

“The start of the first race went well,” Jones told CycleOnline. “I was behind Josh there and feeling quite comfortable. Then on the second or third lap, we just had a technical issue with the bike that meant I DNF’d that race.

“I had no pre-warning to it – the bike was great, then in an instant, it’s more or less just like you’ve switched the kill switch off, and yeah, no power. Obviously, I tried to restart the engine and get it going again, but no luck there – just completely came to a stop.

“That was very disappointing because I genuinely think we were in the hunt for a race win, but we came and did what we were supposed to [in race two], which was to win the race. So that was good to finish on a positive note.”

Image: Foremost Media.

It wasn’t an easy race by any means, however, with Jones detailing the traction and power output of the McMartin Racing-prepared Ducati Panigale V4 R, particularly off the corners. Consistent pressure combined with a decrease in grip led Jones to a decisive move and a convincing first race win of the 2025 season.

“It’s a hard slog [racing Josh] because, I think I said it on the podium, but that bike is so fast,” he added. “It’s really hard to run with when he’s got a lot of grip, you know, accelerating so hard out of the turns and putting bike lengths in between each corner. So, for me, I was just hanging in there as best I could.

“Once he started to lose some rear grip, and I think from a traction point of view, he suffered significantly, and started to make a whole bunch of mistakes left, right, and centre. That meant I was all over the back of him. Once I went past, I just put the hammer down and left him in the dust. So that was a pretty nice feeling.”

Image: Foremost Media.

Considering the big picture, four rounds remain in this year’s championship, and as is the case with motorsport, anything can happen. The points gap marks quite the deficit, especially now the series will slowly shift south after round five at Queensland Raceway alongside the Supercars – once again entering a happy hunting ground for Waters at the Island.

This means that it’s time for Jones to collect wins, as every single point counts at this stage in the season. The 31-year-old is maintaining a level head, however, taking things race by race with a focus on optimising he and his YZF-R1M.

“Look, the big thing for me is to just focus again, on myself and trying to maximise what I can get out of myself and the Yamaha R1M,” continued Jones. “And we saw that in race two, when I can do that, we’re quite dominant. It’s a matter of just going to the next round and trying to extract absolutely every last little bit out of myself and the bike. And you know, that’s the best we can do.”