Positive first day at The Bend for Maxima BMW’s Allerton & Collins

The First Practice session at the third round of the Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK) this afternoon, has seen Maxima BMW’s Glenn Allerton and Ted Collins finish in seventh and fourteenth place respectfully.

Posting the seventh fastest time with a 1min55.012 was Allerton, who recorded his fastest lap time on his twelfth lap out of a total of fifteen. The 38-year-old expressed that today was pretty good, considering he and the team didn’t do the test at The Bend Motorsport Park a few weeks ago.

“We are sort of playing ‘catch up’ in a way,” said Allerton, who posted his fastest time on lap twelve out of a total of fifteen.

“In saying that, I’m pretty happy with seventh place to start the weekend off,” added the former three times Australian Superbike Champion.

“It’s always a difficult round here, in terms of quickly the tyres degrade. We have already done one session and we have burnt through three rear tyres. As I said, its always hard playing catch-up when you are in a one-way battle with the tyres falling apart.”

However, Allerton and the team have a good direction and gathered some good data today. So, the New South Welshman and his side of the garage we’ll work on that and work towards tomorrow.

“Hopefully we can keep the Maxima BMW S 1000RR where we are and even improve slightly,” finished Allerton.

Collins guided his #29 Maxima BMW S 1000RR to a 1min57.265 around the 4.95km International Circuit.

“From a times point of view, it was quite a tough day,” said Collins.

“As the Maxima BMW team and I didn’t come to The Bend Motorsport Park to test a few weeks ago, it has made it slightly difficult for us.”

However, in the end the 2017 Australian Supersport Champion believes his lap times were not so bad. The main thing is, Collins has a good base to work off for tomorrow to try and improve on his times and position.

“We do have a lot of areas where we can improve the BMW S 1000RR. So, we just have to focus on that. Tomorrow, I believe we should be more where we should be in terms of lap times and position,” concluded Collins.

Maxima BMW’s Team Manager Wayne Hepburn expressed that he was happy with today’s shake down.

“Our riders haven’t seen the track since last year. Everyone in front of us has had multiple tests. By tomorrow afternoon I would expect to be competitive,” said Hepburn.

Free Practice two for the Australian Superbike class gets underway tomorrow at 9:15am ACST, while Times Practice will ignite into action at 1:30pm ACST.