TWO THREE PR:

Victorian-based favourite Wayne Maxwell enjoyed a dominant opening day in the Australian Superbike Championship category at the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix at Phillip Island today, racing to the opening race victory after scoring pole position earlier in the day.

The Oleon Motologic Racing rider piloted his Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade to pole position in this morning’s lone 25-minute qualifying session after also topping the morning’s practice, setting a fastest lap of 1:32.902sec and being the only rider to lap in the 1:32 bracket.

Maxwell continued his domination at the 4.445-kilometre circuit in the afternoon, winning the opening six-lap race of the weekend by a comfortable 1.724sec, although the opening two races of the weekend won’t be counted toward the official championship tally.

The fastest lap of the race was awarded to Maxwell with a blistering 1:32.711sec, just shy of the current ASBK lap record of 1:32.4711sec, a time that would have placed the 26-year-old 11th in today’s opening MotoGP World Championship practice session.

Race two of the ASBK category will be run tomorrow afternoon, before Sunday’s pair of eight-lap races will feature as the point-paying rounds toward the Australian Superbike Championship, where Maxwell currently sits third with an 18-point deficit after scoring a single point for pole position this morning.

Maxwell is currently in the form of his career since setting pole and winning both races at the most recent ASBK round at Mallala in South Australia, also taking out last month’s ASBK Open alongside the Phillip Island 500 V8 Supercars event.

Wayne Maxwell – Superbike #47
It was great to start from pole and then go on to win the race after leading from start to finish today. It came fairly easy, just got a good start and got into a good rhythm. It was only a short six-lap race today, so after the first few laps I was able to just cruise it home. I’m sure not all of the races are going to come easy this weekend, but we’ll take the easy ones when we can. I tried a few settings this morning and, to be honest, they didn’t quite work out, but in the race this afternoon I was able to go faster and it gave me great confidence for the remainder of the weekend. I’m happy with the way the race went today, we were a fair bit quicker than the other guys, did what we had to do and then tomorrow I’ll be trying a little bit harder to stretch that lead, which will hopefully set us up for some good points come the championship-scoring races on Sunday.