Josh Waters finished eighth at the season opener at Phillip Island.

Current Australian Superbike Champion Josh Waters has vowed to keep on fighting in his title defense despite a crushing blow to his season when his Team Suzuki GSX-R1000 got stuck in third gear at Phillip Island’s season opener last weekend.

Waters ended the round eighth overall with 3-12 results, race two hampered when the gear linkage broke on the fourth lap – forcing him to march on without changing gears for the remainder of the race.

“My bike had the pace to win both races, so it’s disappointing to be eighth in the championship after the opening round,” the 23-year-old said. “The good news is that there are still five rounds remaining, so it’s up to me to haul back some points.”

After scoring third in the opening race behind arch-rival Wayne Maxwell and current Supersport champion Bryan Staring, Waters was confident he could turn the results around for race two of the weekend on Sunday afternoon.

“I felt I had their measure – my bike had the pace, that’s for sure,” Waters continued. “I had a one-second gap after three laps, but as I went into Turn Two on lap four, the gear-linkage broke and I was stuck in third gear for the rest of the race. I managed a 1:37.9 doing a whole lap in third!”

Despite the setback, Waters hopes to pull back some points at next month’s second round of the series to be held at Hidden Valley Raceway on 8-11April.

“Eighth overall is not the way I wanted to start my championship defence, so it’s up to me now to knuckle down and keep winning races to close down the gap,” he concluded.