Halliday tops Friday at The Bend | Late crash cruels Miller’s progress

ASBK 2022

The Bend finale – Friday Practice Results / Report

Track temperatures was nudging 50-degrees Celsius (about 125 Fahrenheit), by the time Superbike competitors hit the track for their third and final 25-minute free practice session today at The Bend.

Jack Miller had made significant progress in the FP2 session.  He had reported that he could feel a slight vibration from the bike at times and Pirelli technicians had suggested he try the SC2 front in this FP3 session. His Thriller Motorsports team-mate Josh Hook hadn’t fared quite so well in FP2, a high-side due to an electronics glitch smacking the reigning FIM World Endurance Champion onto the deck. His Fireblade sustained some damage that the team are working hard to repair but it looked unlikely he would be on track in this session. Later on Hooky told us that he believed he had broken his scaphoid so that would put him out for the weekend.

Both YRT men were hot to trot, banging in 1m51s on their first flying laps, a 1m51.750 to Mike Jones his best lap of the day, and a 1m51.899 to Halliday, who had topped the earlier FP2 session with an even faster 1m51.518.

Herfoss then went top with a 1m51.661 but not for long as Jones responded with a 1m51.377. It was not until almost ten-minutes later when Cru Halliday got wound up again to drop in the quickest time of the weekend thus far, a 1m50.969 under the existing race lap record, but a few tenths away from Wayne Maxwell’s 1m50.520 qualifying lap record. That meant we had a YRT 1-2 at the top of the time-sheets with ten minutes remaining in the 25-minute session.

Bryan Staring was on a hot one, fractionally under at the first split but then went down at turn six. He eventually remounted and headed back to the pits under his own steam. To add further insult to the DesmoSport Ducati squad Broc Pearson then went down at turn 12.

Jack Miller then got wound up…. Under at the first split, almost lineball through the second, but then lost a few tenths in the third sector before going down at the penultimate corner.

A red flag was then produced to recover crashed bikes which momentarily halted any further progress. Arthur Sissis was also on a hot one, more than a tenth under at the first split.

Riders then returned to pitlane and waited for pit-lane to open for the remaining five-minutes in the session. The order at that juncture was Halliday leading the way from Jones, Herfoss P3 ahead of Maxwell and Sissis. Falzon had worked his way up to P6 ahead of Allerton and West, Josh Waters P9 and Broc Pearson rounded out the top ten ahead of Jed Metcher.

The delay was less than ten-minutes before pit-lane opened again and most of the field wasted no time in getting back out on track.  Red first sectors were lighting up the timing screens everywhere….  But few were carrying that speed through the remaining sectors.. One that did was Arthur Sissis, who split the YRT men to make it a Yamaha 1-2-3 with less than a minute to go on the shot clock.  Herfoss and Maxwell also improved their best to go P4 and P5 respectively, Maxwell then went P3 briefly before Mike Jones ended the session on a 1m51.191 to push Maxwell back to P4.

Jack Miller’s late crash prevented him from putting any late time attack and thus he ended the session in P14 but that does not correlate to his potential speed here this weekend and his time from P2 placed him eighth on combined times for the day outright.

This afternoon we saw the hottest temperatures that we are expecting this weekend, however, while today started out cool it will not be like that tomorrow as overnight temperatures are only expected to go down to 18, before a projected top of around 30-degrees, with a chance of a thunderstorm to turn things balmy on Saturday afternoon… Sunday race day is expected to be much cooler with a forecast of only 21 and a very slight chance of an occasional shower.

For reference the qualifying record here at The Bend is a 1m50.520 and the race lap record a 1m50.972, both set by Wayne Maxwell here last year.

Superbike FP3 Times

Superbike Friday Combined Practice Times

Supersport Friday Combined Practice Times

Dunlop Supersport 300 Friday Practice Combined Times

Yamaha Finance R3 Cup Friday Practice Combined Times

bLU cRU Oceania Junior Cup Friday Practice Combined Times

Superbike Masters Friday Practice Combined Times

Sidecars Friday Practice Combined Times

The Bend ASBK Schedule