Another piece to this year’s Yamaha Motor Finance Australian Superbike Championship jigsaw puzzle was added with the announcement late last night that the 2009 and 2012 Australian Superbike Champion Josh Waters will return to the series full time in the 2017 season.
Waters, 30, will race this year’s ASBK series aboard the all-new 2017 Suzuki GSX-R1000R in a new team, which is called Team Suzuki Ecstar.
“The deal came about quite late, but its great that’s it’s happened,” said Waters, who has also previously ridden in the World and British Superbike Championships as well as the ASBK series.
“I’m really looking forward to the year ahead that’s for sure.”
Team Suzuki Ecstar will be ran by Canberra Motorcycle Centre with the support from Suzuki Australia, while Phil Tainton will be in charge of building the motorcycle.
Waters, who is currently at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit for the world launch of the 2017 Suzuki GSX-R1000R did do a few laps aboard the bike yesterday, however only in street form.
“It’s quite hard to tell how well the Suzuki GSX-R1000R will perform under race conditions, but I’m sure it will go very well indeed as Suzuki always have made a good motorcycle to race on.”
The only difficult thing at the moment Waters has explained will be obtaining parts for the new bike, as parts are quite hard to get a hold at this present time because the bike is so new.
With Waters having his first ‘gallop’ around the 4.445km seaside circuit yesterday, what does he think of the GSX-R1000R thus far?
“The bike feels really good to be honest. Suzuki have just improved a lot of things and done a great job. I can’t wait to ride the bike in race trim in a few weeks’ time.”
Waters has admitted that the opening round at Phillip Island will be difficult, as explained because parts are so hard to get a hold of right now.
“It will be a challenge, I do admit that. However we will try our hardest and see where we end up at the end of the round and take it from there.”
The Mildura based rider of course put in an unbelievable effort at the final round of the ASBK series last year at Winton Motor Raceway when he finished third overall by scoring a 3-4 result aboard a privately entered Yamaha YZF-R1 machine which was ran by Jordan Coote.
So, how does Waters feel about heading into this year’s championship, which is arguably the biggest year by far in the ASBK history?
“It’s awesome to be able to come back into the series and with Suzuki as well, who of course have not been a part of the championship in an official form since 2013.
The end of last year was good to ride again, which also made me feel good because the results were very good as well. I look forward to being back in the championship full time and hopefully be able to challenge for the championship.”
At the opening round of the Australian Superbike Championship there will be seven different manufacturers on the grid in the Superbike class, which include Yamaha, Kawasaki, Honda, Ducati, Aprilia, MV Agusta and of course Suzuki.
Words: Russell Colvin
Photo: Andrew Gosling – tbgsport
