Double Australian Superbike champion Josh Waters enjoyed a positive test session at Wakefield Park circuit on Tuesday ahead of the second round of the Yamaha Motor Finance Australian Superbike Championship.
It has been thirteen years since the Mildura based rider has raced at the Wakefield Park, so 30-year-old technically is a little bit behind the eight ball compared to his rivals.
On top of that, it was also the first time that the all new Suzuki GSX-R1000 has been put through its paces around the 2.2km circuit, with no data to work from.
“While the team and I were a bit behind everything in regards to bike setup, track knowledge and other little bits and pieces, it was good to get out on track and simply get my eye back in around this track,” Waters told AMCN.
“For sure it would have been great if it wasn’t wet on Wednesday, but it is what it is,” added the Team Suzuki Ecstar rider.
Heading into the first round of practice sessions at round two on the Friday, Waters knows he and his team have got a plan to work off in regards to the settings.
Tuesday also marked the first time that Waters rode his spare Suzuki GSX-R1000, as he didn’t have enough time at the opening round at Phillip Island at the end of February to test it, due to the lack of track time over the course of the weekend.
“It was good to get out there and ride the spare bike and getting all the positions right and giving it a good run,” explained Waters.
Waters’ testing program on Tuesday was simply all about getting a ‘feel’ for the bike.
“We tried different geometry settings. However we still don’t have the suspension and don’t have the tuning parts for the bike.
It’s very similar to the first round at the Island. So we’ll just try and make the best of what we have got at the moment.”
Waters is not really worried about what other riders are doing around him, so he’ll worry about myself and is confident that if he keeps chipping away at it, he and his team will make the bike better throughout the course of the 2017 season.
“It’s good that we have three thirty minute sessions on the Friday at round two. I just hope its good weather, which will enable us to get a bit more track time before we get into the racing,” said Waters, who finished tenth overall at round one with a DNF-5-5 result.
Throughout the test on Tuesday, Waters rode around on old Pirelli tyres which he raced on at Phillip Island till the last session.
Waters explained that it was a waste of time to get on new tyres earlier, as he had relearn the circuit first before trying to push for any serious lap times.
“In the last session I put new Pirelli tyres on, but I don’t think I’ll race on those particular types of tyres at the round.”
As there are so many teams on the Italian rubber this year, Waters was being careful on how many tyres he is using up. In hindsight Waters should have done what a lot of the other riders, which was put new tyres on during the course of the day as they got a lot out of it.
Words and Images by Russell Colvin
