Wayne Maxwell was out for redemption after going down the road at The Hayshed in the season opener.  Bryan Staring was around a second behind Maxwell when he went down, the West Australian going on to capitalise on Wayne’s mistake and take an emotionally charged five-second victory to put the angst of a frustrating couple of years behind him. Yamaha Racing Team’s Cru Halliday and Mike Jones rounded out the podium.

Wayne was on the grid in pole position on his second bike after wrecking his #1 bike in the opening bout.  Alongside him on the back of their strong qualifying performances were Cru Halliday and Josh Waters.  Mike Jones heads the second row alongside race one victor Bryan Staring while Daniel Falzon rounds that second row.

Arthur Sissis rocketed off the line from the fourth row of the grid but it was Wayne Maxwell leading Bryan Staring and Mike Jones leading the way through turn one for the first time ahead of Josh Waters and Cru Halliday. Wayne hard on the gas out of Southern Loop seeing his rear Pirelli protest letting everyone know he was not going to make things easy for them to stay in his tow.

Halliday looked to challenge his team-mate for third place on the run down to MG Hairpin but Jones covered his line, Halliday found his way past shortly thereafter to move up to third and set about chasing those two Ducati men in front of him. Right there behind the YRT duo was Josh Waters.

It was clear that Maxwell’s rivals had found a lot more speed over the course of the weekend to close the gap and make a contest of it over a full race distance.

Cru Halliday was the fastest man on track on lap three, and Jones was quickest on lap four. The YRT duo determined to keep the Ducati men in sight.  Maxwell led Staring by half-a-second at this juncture while Halliday was closing to within striking distance of Staring.

Maxwell was of course on his spare bike so perhaps not quite as familiar and comfortable as his primary weapon, which could be slowing him a little.

It was obviously still fast enough though as the defending champion started to pull away from Staring as the race progressed By half race distance Maxwell had more than a full-second buffer over Staring as the race one winner continued to be chased hard by two YRT bikes. Only that quartert were running 1m32s consistently while fifth placed Josh Waters and sixth placed Daniel Falzon managed a couple earlier on in the race.

Cru Halliday continued to shadow Bryan Staring, and with three laps to run he was all over the DesmoSport Ducati.  Staring opened the door at turn four and Halliday walked through but Staring powered away again on the exit and had the entry line to Siberia. Maxwell now led them both by over 2.5-seconds.

At the last lap board Halliday trailed Staring by just over three-tenths at the stripe as that battle for second place continued. Staring tidy through turn four this time, maintained sway through the Hayshed, and had enough in hand to stay ahead of Halliday at the chequered flag to score that second place and the overall round win.

Today’s results will not only take a load of pressure off Bryan and the DesmoSport Ducati squad, but will also further fuel their fire to bridge their speed gap to Maxwell.

Wayne Maxwell was the race two victor though in fairly dominant fashion and one would say still the championship favourite.

A great start to the season for Yamaha Racing Team but one I must say I did expect. I thought Cru might be even stronger, and if not for taking what looked like a backward step yesterday in set-up he may well might have been. I thought his new team-mate Mike Jones would most likely match him for one lap speed but I didn’t expect him to be so in tune with the Yamaha already to stick that close to Cru over a full race distance. Mike will only get stronger from here, as I expect will Cru.

The lead up to this round for the Maxima Racing Oils BMW squad had been a little troubled. Building bikes at the last minute, Allerton recovering from COVID along with an ear infection affecting his balance, and Josh still getting comfortable on the M 1000 RR, I think leaving here with Josh only 12-points from the championship lead, and Glenn only a further four-points behind, will have them quite happy considering their preparation, but hungry for more in three weeks time when he race at Queensland Raceway.

Daniel Falzon and his squad have done way better here this weekend than they would have dared to dream I am sure. While these results and even better would be expected with a good preparation and a fit Daniel, to bank a decent haul of points at this stage of the season, amongst their on-the-fly learning experience with the new MoTeC control ECU, will have them smiling all the way back to South Australia. Amongst planning the next stage of their attack of course but unfortunately they will not be at the next round as a date change to the calendar has made it clash with Daniel’s wedding.

Arthur Sissis didn’t quite produce the speed he did at home during the 2021 season finale but I think they expected to have a bit more of an uphill battle here with so little experience behind them on the Unitech Racing Yamaha Superbike at Phillip Island. Thus leaving here on 26-points for equal seventh in the championship with Maxwell, I don’t think they will be too displeased.

There is no doubt that Matt Walters and his family run Cessnock Kawasaki outfit so regularly punch above their weight and they did it again here. Ninth places in both races bagging them 24-points ahead of plenty of well fancied opposition.

Aiden Wagner would be quite disappointed with his speed here this weekend and along with the Addicted To Track team they will be searching for answers but they are on home soil next time out and I am sure will bring more to the table.

Anthony West finally had a machine that allowed him to bring home two results and that should encourage the squad on to bigger and better things from here.

I imagine Troy Herfoss and Penrite Honda will be having some serious debriefing sessions after this weekend and formulating a plan to drill down to the root cause of their lack of competitiveness. It is not where they belong but on the upside there is a long time and a lot of racing between here and the final and eighth round of the series in nine months time so there is plenty of time to right the ship.

12th and 15th for the round for the new 727 Moto Team with Jed Metcher leading debutante Broc Pearson was a reasonable start to the season for the well backed team that sports the largest team of highly experienced technicians in the field.

Tom Edwards and Senna Agius have been the stand outs in the Supersport category all weekend but a puncture put Edwards out of contention in the opening bout of the season which saw him out for redemption in the second and final race of the weekend. Tom Lytras changed an engine before this second bout after his bike developed a rattle this morning.

Tom Edwards led Senna Agius around lap one as Tom Bramich, Olly Simpson and Ty Lynch gave chase. Agius went through on Edwards for the lead late on the opening lap. That top four stayed fairly close together over the first two laps before Agius and Edwards managed to start breaking away from Bramich and Simpson, the top duo running 1m35.6s which was a pace that the rest of the field could not match.

Tom Bramich had also dipped in the 1m35s to break away from Oli Simpson but with six laps to run he trailed the leading duo by two-seconds.

Agius made a mistake under brakes for turn four which allowed Edwards to close right on his tail only for Edwards to then made a mistake, allowing Agius to pull away from him and Bramich to get right onto his tail-pipe. A lap later Bramich had to take evasive action at Southern Loop to avoid running into the back of Edwards which lost him a lot of time. Dallas Skeer retired to the pits as the race approached the halfway mark.

Up front and away from all that drama was Senna Agius with a 2.5-second lead over Edwards with four laps to run.

Senna Agius broke away to take victory by almost five-seconds while Tom Bramich rounded out the podium a further 3.4-seconds behind.

Further back Olly Simpson, Ty Lynch and Tom Drane had been battling for fourth but as the race progressed Simpson managed to break to make that fourth place safe.

A crazy close final Supersport 300 encounter for the weekend saw the top 15 covered by less than two-seconds as they got the last lap board.

At turn four on the final lap it was a continuous run of bikes from entry to exit all running nose-to-tail.  Varis Fleming and James Jacobs led them onto the main straight for the final time and finished in that order with Joseph Marinello getting the nod for the final step on the podium ahead of Henry Snell and Brodie Gawith.

Henry Snell might have got fourth in the final race but he leaves Phillip Island with the lead in the championship on 67-points, ahead of Taiyo Aksu on 49-points and James Jacobs on 47.

The final R3 Cup bout was another ridiculously close contest but geese on track curtailed their fun and saw the race declared after five laps.

The action was coming thick and fast in the final OJC encounter for the weekend as even halfway through the race the top ten were covered by less than a second with the order of that top ten constantly shuffling at a rate that made it almost impossible to tell who was running where a lot of the time.

Unfortunately they didn’t get to complete the full race distance after a crash at turn 12 saw officials put out the red flag after new lap record holder Valentino Knezovic went down at turn 12.

Marcus Hamod was declared the winner from Ryan Larkin and Cameron Rende.

Motojourno - Founder of MCNews.com.au - Australia's leading resource for motorcycle news, reviews and race coverage for over 20 years.

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