2015

Marais comes out on top in QLD

News

Western Australian rider Michelle Marais (SP Racing) has had an incredible weekend at Morgan Park, taking the round win in the Production class at the 2015 Yamaha Motor Finance ASBK Championship presented by Motul Pirelli.

Marais pulled off a final race win on Sunday claiming the lead in the race on the final lap, to hand her a hard fought round win ahead of Justin Hall and Victorian rider Illish Ross (Chas Hern Racing).

After the opening race took place on Saturday, the second and third races contained the closest racing of the day, and the racing was appreciated by the healthy Queensland crowd.

Race 2

Sells pulled clear from front spot on the grid to take the lead from Justin Hall and Marais in a repeat of race one action from Saturday.

Hayden Spinks and Josh McHenry (Tricomms National) settled into the other top-five positions.

After lap one, Sells held the lead from Hall – who was half a second ahead of Spinks after he had moved into third, while Ross moved herself up into fifth spot.

Spinks rode into second on lap two in what was an intense battle with Hall – the top-three riders nearly 10-seconds clear of McHenry in fourth.

Sells looked as though he was going to continue his dominance of the class riding consistently before Spinks started reeling reeling him in.

The New South Welshman had reduced the gap to 1.645 seconds at the halfway mark of the nine-lap race, and soon after made his charge – by the end of lap six he was only .021 of a second behind.

Shortly after on lap seven Spinks made the breakthrough pass, taking the lead and leaving Sells with a lot of work to do.

Hall was not far behind with a 2.4 second gap between himself and Sells, while behind him Marais and Ross in fourth and fifth were leading the Women’s class in the category.

Spinks looked as though he was going to hold on for a wonderful race win, however on the final lap Sells passed to ride on to his second class race victory for the weekend.

Spinks had to settle for second, Hall held on to third, while Marais and Ross claimed fourth and fifth.

Race 3

In the second race for the day and the third race for the round, Sells got a great start to take the lead from Hall, Marais and Spinks.

After lap one Sells had been pushed back to third, with spinks moving into the lead and hall taking a hold of second.

Behind them, it was Ross who moved into fourth spot, with Marais dropping back to fifth. And it stayed that was throughout lap two.

Hall managed to pass Spinks to take the lead on lap three but by the end of the lap there was only .148 of a second separating the top three.

That gap was even smaller through four laps – all three riders lining up together over the finish line into lap five providing the closest race of the meet so far.

Lap six Spinks crashed coming into turn one leaving it to Sells and Hall to battle it out for the race win.

With only three laps to go Marais pushed up into third ahead of Ross, with Chris Greene rounding out the top five.

Hall and Sells were going at it hammer and tong, and coming into the final lap it was anyone’s guess what would happen.

And then it all happened. Both riders were involved in an accident while jockeying for position on turn six forcing Sells out of the race and Hall having to settle for sixth.

That allowed Marais to come through and claim the race win with Ross grabbing second spot and Josh McHenry (Tricomms National) taking out third.

The next round of the Championship will be held at Barbagallo Raceway in Western Australia from 22-24 May.

AUSTRALIAN 300cc PRODUCTION CHAMPIONSHIP

1          Michelle MARAIS (WA) (18, 17, 25)   60
2          Justin HALL (NSW) (20, 18, 15)   53
3          Iilish ROSS (VIC) (15, 16, 20)   51
4          Drew SELLS (VIC) (25, 25, 0) 50
5          Josh McHENRY (VIC) (14, 15, 18)   47
6          Chris GREENE (QLD) (16, 14, 17)   47
7          Aaron LINHAM (WA) (13, 13, 16)   42
8          Hayden SPINKS (NSW) (17, 20, 0) 37
9          Craig WHITE (NSW) (12, 0, 14)   26