Kiwis head to ASBK decider with unfinished business after Morgan Park challenges
Durning notches top Superbike result as King's Supersport 300 championship lead evaporates. Roll on Queensland Raceway
By Kent Gray
Pole and P1 on Saturday. P1 and P1 on Sunday. The perfect weekend, with a premier class caveat given the Superbikes have only raced twice at 2026 Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK) rounds thus far.
At Morgan Park Raceway, 20-year-old Harrison Voight did it on his McMartin Racing Ducati to take charge of the Superbike championship. In Supersport, fellow Queenslander Riley Nauta was your man on his Kawasaki. NSWâs Thomas Cameron the same on his rented Yamaha in the Oceania Junior Cup.
The four New Zealanders? Yeah, well, nah. Not quite.
Round 4 of ASBK wasnât quite as easy for the Kiwis although all four flew out of Brisbane International with positives to bring back to Queensland Raceway late next month for the final round of this truncated season.
In the Superbike class, Luca Durning finally cracked Q2 for the first time on his Desmosport Ducati and remains 13th in the championship after 12th and 11th placings in Sundayâs races. The 11th was his season best result but slightly tempered by the smaller field in rural Queensland with just 12 riders in race 2 and Durningâs 1:01:084 deficit to Voight over 16 laps.
A top-10 at Queensland Raceway, or âQRâ as the Aussies like to abbreviate it, and more track intel banked for the impending move to the new summer ASBK championship (from October 2026 to April 2027) will be the Whanganui 21-year-oldâs final round aim.
QR will also be the scene of a thrilling finale to the Race and Road Australian Supersport 300 championship after Nautaâs perfect weekend at Morgan Park meant others, Silverdaleâs Tyler King chief among them, couldnât have one.
King entered round 4 with a 27 point lead in the championship but left Morgan Park with a four point deficit to Nauta who now has the momentum after winning five races on the trot, a streak started at The Bend in early May.
The Rodney 19-year-old is nothing if not chilled though and will hope for his luck to turn at QR after 2nd, 14th and 3rd placings in races 10, 11 and 12 respectively.
The 14th was a hammer blow after a late crash â he did well to rejoin and gain seven points. But the off came back to haunt the AVA NZ / GVR / WET4U Race Fairings / Mad Mike Motosport-backed rider in the weekendâs final race. King initially ran with Nauta but eventually slipped off the pace, could only shake his head in frustration as Orlando Peovitis passed him into second and was forced to nurse his wounded Ninja 400 home.
âYeah thank you⌠itâs not quite the way we wanted it. I mean, the clutch started giving way during the race and something else came loose,â King said on the live broadcast after being congratulated on his race 12 podium.
Then came the promise.
âIâm not going to blame anyone, these things happen, itâs racing and weâll bounce back next round.â
Nixon Frost had a solid weekend on his Yamaha YZF-R3. The Wellingtonian rattled off 9th, 10th and 11th places in the 300 class to sit 13th overall. In the Yamaha Blu Cru R3 Cup, the teen fought for 6th, 7th and 9th places and is 11th in the overall standings. A massive crash in Sundayâs opening R3 race involving Connor Lewis and Nikolas Larzos helped promote Frost up the standings, but a clean weekend in a class that can bite hard is a result in and of itself.
In the Yamaha Blu Cru Oceania Junior Championship, Lucas Hyslop will enter the final round 5th in the standings after a topsy-turvy weekend at Morgan Park.
After his crash and rejoin for 17th in Saturdayâs race 7, the 15-year-old rebounded with 8th and 2nd placings on Sunday, the latter in a nip and tuck exchange near the front throughout a race reduced from six to four laps after an early red flag.
Hyslop is 74 points behind championship leader Thomas Cameron so the title is mathematically feasible if Hyslop had the perfect weekend at QR and those above him stumble. More realistically, a top three finish overall will be in the Orewa teenâs sights with Ryder McKenna just five points ahead in third.
SW-Motech Superbike: Voight in control but QR will have the final say
Voight extended his championship lead to 24 points (198pts plays 174pts) over McMartin Racing team-mate and five-time ASBK Superbike champion Josh Waters, the latter frustrated with 2nd and 3rd placings over the weekend as the prospect of a sixth title slipped a little from his grasp.
Yamaha pilot Cameron Dunker is 3rd overall on 146 points but with a maximum of 50 points up for grabs at Queensland Raceway, this is now a two rider title fight.
Voightâs perfect weekend was achieved despite a decent dose of jetlag after heâd flown in from Barcelona following the opening round of the Moto2 European Championship.
He was straight back out for Europe on Sunday night for testing and round 2 at Portugal on June 14, a fortnight before Queensland Raceway. Given the top-flight competition that Roulstone (who remained in Europe), Voight and JJ Nahlous are getting in Europe â theyâre 7th, 9th and 13th in the Moto2 Europeans respectively â it surely gives the young guns race fitness over the likes of Waters and Mike Jones who enjoyed his first podiums, 3rd and 2nd, of the season at Morgan Park.
The only guarantee? Round 5 of the Penrite Oil ASBK Championship from June 26-28 will be appointment viewing.