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YMF Australian Superbike
2005 - Round Six - Queensland Raceway Team Report - Honda September 20th, 2005
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YMF Australian Superbike
2005 - Round Six - Queensland Raceway Team Report - Honda September 20th, 2005
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| After another weekend of
fierce racing at round six of the Australian Superbike
Championships, Joe Rocket Honda riders Josh Brookes and Adam
Fergusson have maintained the top two positions on the
Supersport ladder, with 12 points now separating the two
formidable riders. With a third place finish for Brookes at the warm and windy Queensland circuit and a season of consistently strong results, the 22 year old now has 266 points to his name with one round to go. The title chase is still open, however, and the 600cc Championship will not be decided until the final round at Phillip Island in November. A total of 51 points is still up for grabs with the only mathematical threat to Brookes remaining being his team mate Fergusson on 254 points. Mark Aitchison in third place is not quite close enough to challenge the lead. After a “somewhat frustrating” 5th place finish in Queensland, Adam said he will be pulling out all stops to make it a fight to the end. “This weekend in the 600 class was challenging for sure,” Fergusson said. “I was getting strong starts but finding it hard to maintain the pace. I was still able to pull together a couple of decent results though; enough to keep the Championship close so that’s what counts.” After qualifying in pole position and getting away out the front in both races, Brookes who took his fourth Supersport podium in the class for the season, said he was pleased to have retained the lead after a physically demanding day. “The pace was very quick out there between the top few guys, and I did have some trouble with arm pump which made it hard to get an advantage. I would have been happier to get a few more points up my sleeve this weekend to give me a bit more breathing room but I’m confident I will be able to finish off the season strongly one way or another.” Competition in the premier 1000cc class also still remains tight. Although the Joe Rocket riders finished in 5th (Fergusson) and 6th (Brookes) positions after a somewhat ‘difficult’ weekend, 15 points only now divide the top three Superbike Championship contenders, including the two Honda riders and Shawn Giles. After a restart of Superbike race one, Fergusson inched ahead of Robert Bugden on combined times to take a hard earned third place, whilst second time out the defending Champion finished sixth just behind his team mate after another restart and subsequent shortened race for the end of the day’s proceedings. “Again, things didn’t really go as I had hoped in Superbikes,” Adam said. “I didn’t qualify all that well in seventh position and I just couldn’t catch up to the leaders. Overall, I just didn’t feel all that comfortable on the circuit and that played out in the results.” Brookes, who tallied up a 6th and 5th place finish in the two class races also struggled to stay with the front runners, but did accumulate a good enough score to put him just ten points shy of the top spot by weekend’s end. “This track is not one of my favourites,” Brookes said. “Still I should have been able to do a bit better here so its just one of those meetings where I’ll walk away and think hard about what I can do to get on top of this Championship at the final round in November.” Honda’s junior development team, Rocket Racing including Judd Greedy and Jason O’Halloran also battled to find their usual speed and form. Greedy finished 13th in Superbikes at his second round back this season after rehabilitating from a back injury, whilst O’Halloran found his pace toward the end of the day, finishing 9th overall in Supersport. Commenting on the Team’s uncharacteristic results, Manager Paul Free said, “there were a lot of contributing factors that didn’t come together for us that generally do at a race meeting. That being said, Josh was still able to finish in a respectable position in Supersport where he has been so dominant all year.” “As a Team, we will focus now on the next event which will be the MotoGP, and although it doesn’t count toward the Championship, I can assure you we will be using it as a means to get some good results that we will carry into the final round.” |
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