YAMAHA RACING:

Yamaha factory racers Bryan Staring and Jamie Stauffer delivered another dominant showing in this weekend’s Supersport class battle at the Phillip Island MotoGP support event.

The R6-mounted pairing shared all three race wins of the round, with both riders taking a championship points-paying victory.

Jamie and brother Daniel Stauffer made some solid progress across the course of practice, qualifying and racing on the R1 but struggled to stay within reach of the leaders on the flowing Grand Prix circuit.

The Superbike team will take away data and rider feedback in order to prepare for the final ASBK round of the season which will again be held at Phillip Island.

Yamaha Racing Team Superbike

The penultimate round of the ASBK Championship at Phillip Island saw Yamaha’s factory Superbike racers continue their push for results at the closing end of what has been a frustrating season.

In front of the large crowd gathered for the headline MotoGP event, riders Jamie and Daniel Stauffer took to the track early on Friday for the first and only practice and qualifying sessions.

With just 25 minutes to chase setup direction, there was little opportunity to improve upon the base settings of the R1 racebikes.

Jamie qualified in eighth, with Daniel a grid position behind in ninth.

The opening race of the day, a non-championship 6-lap showdown, was run in rare fine conditions. Jamie could do little but defend and slipped to 9th at the wave of the chequered flag; a DNF for Daniel signalled the start of a tough weekend.

The duo were locked together for much of the first point-scoring race and Daniel was first home in 7th ahead of Jamie in 8th.

This morning’s 8-lap opener saw Jamie climb to 7th and Daniel slip to 12th.

The final race of the weekend saw Jamie make further progress, fighting within the top 5 for much of the duration. He eventually conceded a placing to finish 6th. A second DNF for Daniel rounded out a forgettable weekend.

Cross-entered in the Supersport championship, Jamie was able to continue his run of top results, winning a point-scoring race and backing it up with victory in the 6-lap support sprint on Friday.

He said the Phillip Island weekend had a number of ups and downs and looked forward to finishing up the year on a high note.

“The weekend wasn’t too bad, I had a couple of good race wins on the R6 but unfortunately only one counted for points,” said Stauffer.

“It will be hard to make back the gap on Bryan from here but we will try our hardest at the next round.

“On the R1 we made some moves forward throughout the weekend but weren’t really in a position to challenge the podium at all.

“The other teams got in some pre-round testing so they had a bit of a head start on us given the very short practice session on Friday.”

Jamie and Daniel finished sixth and fifteenth respectively for the round and now sit sixth and eighth on the championship ladder.

Yamaha Racing Team Supersport

The Yamaha Racing Team’s Bryan Staring overcame a challenge from fellow R6 rider Jamie Stauffer to secure the round victory at this weekend’s sixth round of the Australian Supersport Championship.

Staring took victory in today’s final race, consolidating a second-place finish on Friday in the first of the point-scoring sprints.

He finished on equal points with Stauffer but takes honours due to his more recent win.

The result provides him with a solid buffer over the defending champion with just a single round remaining. He remains 17 points clear of second and said he was looking forward to wrapping things up when the championship returned to Phillip Island.

“Once again the racing was very close, only two of the three races counted for points and I was able to maintain the gap to Jamie at the end of it all,” said Staring.

“I’d like to thank my team for all the hard work they’ve put in this weekend and all season long, we’re very close to achieving the goal of a championship win and I’m really focused on getting it done when we come back here (Phillip Island) in a few weeks.”

Staring’s results this weekend reflect a season that has seen him deliver frontrunning pace and consistency and he keeps his record of finishing within the top two placings in every points race alive.