Brayden Elliott has retained his Championship lead in the Supersport category following round two of the Swann Insurance Australasian Superbike Championship at South Australia’s Mallala Motorsport Park with a pair of podium results in both the AFX-SBK races on Saturday and Swann Series on Sunday, continuing Brayden’s impressive start to the year.
A late session dash by Brayden in Friday afternoon’s qualifying session saw him claim the second quickest time with a 1:09.327 on lap nine of eleven in the session, handing him a front row start for the first race of the weekend. The starting position for Elliott helped him go on to claim second, third and fourth in Saturday’s three races for the AFX-SBK Championship, subsequently taking second overall for the round and first in B-Grade. The results now also place Brayden in third for the outright Championship and first in B-Grade.
Another front row start for Sunday’s three races as part of the Swann Series for Brayden saw him claim the win in the first nine lap event, in addition to claiming the fastest lap of the race with a 1:08.959. Leading race two up until the penultimate corner, a mistake by the Tumut rider that forced his Hankook Tyres Suzuki GSX-R 600 into neutral which saw him leave the track, re-entering and crossing the finish line in seventh. A solid result in the third and final race of the weekend placed Brayden in second, with another fastest lap of the race. The result handed Elliott third outright for the round and first in B-Grade, thus retaining the lead in the series both in the overall standings and in B-Grade.
Brayden Elliott:
“It’s been another very successful weekend for myself and the Hankook Tyres Suzuki GSX-R 600. With it only being my second time that I had competed at Mallala, I was very happy to come away with the results that I achieved, in particular, to retain the series lead in the Australasian Supersport Championship. The racing was intense right across the weekend and certainly tested me to my limits at times.”
“We had a good qualifying result and it certainly allowed us to focus on areas where we could improve further for the weekend’s races. To come away with second for the round in Saturday’s Championship was a good result and it set us up well for Sunday’s racing which was to be a critical focus considering I held the lead in the series coming into the weekend.”
“Taking the win in the first race on Sunday was a great feeling, though it was disappointing to have suffered the issue in race two, going into false neutral which forced me to finish seventh after holding the race lead up to the final couple of corners. Fighting back to take second in race three and another fastest lap of the race was a strong result for us. To continue to lead the Championship is an outstanding achievement and I’m really looking forward to the coming rounds and to be heading back to Sydney Motorsport Park for the next event which is a track I am beginning to gain a lot of experience on.”
Brayden’s next event is round three of the 2015 Australian Superbike Championship which takes place at Barbagallo Raceway, Western Australia from 22-24 May.
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