Excitement surrounding the final round of the Australian Superbike Championship has increased significantly with the arrival of Jack Miller. The Ducati Factory MotoGP team star surprised many when he announced his intention to compete in the final round of the ASBK, and even more so when we learned he had purchased his own bike and that due to the restrictions of the MotoGP regulations, he will use a standard ECU: his machine will therefore not be specifically adapted to competition.
The Ducati Panigale V4R used by Jack Miller is an ex-Team DesmoSport Ducati Australian Superbike bike, on which the Marelli electronic configuration is replaced by standard electronics. The standard Ducati setup is still better than the electronic kit used by most ASBK competitors, and was good enough to set lap records in recent seasons. Jack Miller is not allowed to use the Marelli racing kit due to restrictions placed on MotoGP riders regarding the specifications of the motorcycles they are allowed to ride, outside of official MotoGP testing. However, in the ASBK Championship, ECU aside, the bikes are very close to the series, this will not prevent Jack Miller from achieving good times.
Local South Australian drivers Arthur Sissis and Daniel Falzon had led FP1, but Jack Miller managed to pass them both with a final fast lap in FP2 to finish top of the timesheets. The circuit and ambient temperature had dropped a few degrees when FP3 rolled around at 16:25 p.m. local time and Arthur Sissis wasted no time in setting up a new battle with his former training partner Jack Miller, closing the 4,95 km route in 1'52.041 to return to the top of the combined ranking at the start of FP3.
The Australian timing systems, which have been used in the championship for over 20 years and are renowned for their reliability, had an issue which prevented all live timing from updating for over 20 minutes... When it came back online, Arthur Sissis was still at the top after improving his time to 1'51.877. Daniel Falzon was in second position with a 1'52.143, while Oli Bayliss had obviously found an answer to his problems from previous sessions and moved up to 3rd position with a time of 1'52.237.
Wayne Maxwell then improved his time, achieved in 1'52.249, pushing Jack Miller back to seventh place in the combined rankings. Arthur Sissis was then faster again, in 1'51.717, with five minutes remaining in this FP3 to beat this new reference time. And Wayne Maxwell, the championship leader, recorded a time of 1'51.686, regaining the lead in the final minutes from his rival Arthur Sissis.
In the cumulative ranking, Wayne Maxwell finished the first day in the lead ahead of Arthur Sissis and Daniel Falzon, while Oli Bayliss moved up to fourth. Jack Miller was unable to improve his time and is fifth overall. Glenn Allerton places his BMW in sixth position, closely followed by the Yamaha of Cru Halliday. Josh Hook was also unable to improve his time, and is eighth.
Australian Superbike action will start to get a little more serious tomorrow, Saturday, with a schedule of 40-minute timed practice sessions starting at 10:40 a.m. local time (or 00:40 a.m. in France). The top nine in this session will go directly to Q2. The rest of the drivers will first have to compete in a 1-minute Q15 session at 15:20 p.m. (05:20 a.m. in France, for early risers), of which the first three will join the nine drivers already qualified in Q2, in order to decide the starting grid for the race which will take place on Sunday. Although the race has a distance half of what Jack Miller is used to, imagine how short it will be for Josh Hook, who is used to the EWC Championship and 24-hour races.
Standings for the Alpinestars Superbike FP1 session at The Bend:
Standings for the Alpinestars Superbike FP2 session at The Bend:
Standings for the Alpinestars Superbike FP3 session at The Bend:
Credit classification & photos: ASBK
