Mike Jones reflects on championship weekend at The Bend

Mike Jones

Australian Superbike Champion 2022

“This season has been great, switching from Ducati to Yamaha is a big deal for me. Getting to know the Yamaha R1M is quite an interesting feeling, the car suits my driving style. It didn’t take long for me to feel great riding and for me to feel comfortable, it gave me a lot of confidence, and it all worked out from the start. It was clear that Phillip Island was our first round in the championship where we were almost finding ourselves again, not only for me with the bike but also for the team. Get to know my boys and get in a relationship with each other. We had great success and it’s been perfect ever since.

When you left Phillip Island after the first round, when do you think you had a chance to win?

“Honestly, I believe I can win it every year, otherwise I wouldn’t have played. I thought that was the case before I got on the motorcycle. When I got on the bike and took it for a test drive, I knew right away. It was great, obviously there was a lot of talk leading up to the weekend, and pole position was the first job, and that first race, even though I wanted to win it, at that point in my life. race, it would I would have been really silly to do anything more than necessary and put the championship in jeopardy. So to finish that race, win the championship, with a backup race, I think that’s a significant achievement. Then, as we saw in that last race, I could just do my normal race and obviously I wanted to do everything I said on the track and that’s what I did. do.

“It was a great race, it was clear as Arthur mentioned that the starting point was very important and I was a few points behind there and there were a few guys in front of me. I’m just trying to find a bit of rhythm and try to get the feel of the bike, we’ve made some changes between race one and race two, so I’m trying to find myself a comfortable position. roof, the others are very hungry.

“Obviously this track goes like that, in the first part of the race you need to be a bit cautious with the tires, because the tires will degrade as the race goes on, and I was a bit conservative. and obviously some people around me were passing and were able to keep up and make some passes.

“REMOVEut when the bike started coming towards me and I started to feel good, the tires started working well, we were really strong at the end of the race and made some passes. Once we were in the lead, I wanted to create a little distance and the bike felt great, so I was able to do some quick lap times to create that distance and keep it for until the end.

“There are so many people to thank, but it’s not just this one season that people have helped you, it’s taken a lot of people over so many years to get to this point. Of course, Team Yamaha, the people on the team that created the environment for me to achieve this result, and the people around me, my personal sponsors, my partners. Chrissy and my family, they are the most important people around me taking care of me between races and making sure I get my job done.”