Australian Aaron Morris impressed in Rnd 2 of the Asian Road Race Supersport Championship at Sentul Indonesia on June 12.
With his first ride on the Indonesian Yamaha Factory Team bike on Friday Morris found himself with a bit of work to do to get the bike set up to his liking. The previous rider was 15 kgs lighter so the base set up was a rather soft! A couple of spring changes before the first 40 min practise got the bike heading in the right direction and Aaron found himself just outside the top ten in 11th position.
After 1st practise and with the help of Stuart from SW Racing the Indonesian Yamaha Team made a few tweaks that hopefully would equate to an improvement in lap times. More changes made throughout the session, with Aaron only doing 8 laps in total to conserve his qualifying tyre, but still climbed to 7th on the grid. With only three bikes on each row the team was still looking for some time to try and get onto the 1st or 2nd row. Best time 1 min 33.8.
Saturday practise and with some more setup changes Morris improved his lap time by over half a second to a 1 min 33.3, but so did the rest of the field and he found himself in 9th position after practise 2. Some more suspension changes and a remap of the fuelling had Morris fired up for the last qualifying opportunity.
His 3rd lap was a 1 min 33.2 and his fastest so far. He pitted again for some clicker adjustment and then realed off a 1min 32.9 on lap 7. On lap 8 round 1 winner Katsuaki Fujiwarra on his Factory Manual-Tech Beet Kawasaki was just ahead of Morris with a 1min 32.5 ( Fuji 6th Morris 7th). With 5 minutes to go Morris went out for a last effort to secure a better grid.
The 1st flyer was a 1min 32.6 and was 1 tenth behind Fugiwarra. Morris's next flyer was a 1min 32.3 which elevated Aaron to 4th on the grid and Fugiwarra to 5th. . Fellow Aussie Mike Jones was 11th on the grid. Cru Halliday was struggling with a bike that was not performing in the Indonesian heat placing him in 17th.
Pleased with his second row Qualifier and stoked to be in front of Fugiwarra, Aaron was looking forward to the race.
Sunday morning fine weather greeted the competitors and the race 1 vcommenced with a fair amount of pushing and barging on the opening lap. Aaron came through 6th on the first lap and held his position to the flag. The front suspension was working well but a rear grip issue needed to be addressed. Morris fastest lap 1min 32.10 . Race Winner Fugiwarra Fastest Lap 1min 31.92
In race 2 Aaron launched off the line well and looked like he would be in a better position until a slow starting Fugiwarra came past and overcooked into turn 1 forcing him wide which allowed Baharudin from Malaysian Kawasaki past Aaron. The problem then was that Baharudin was lapping about 1.5 secs off the leader pace and the gap was forever widening.
In desperation on lap 4 with Bararudin covering his lines and with a straight line speed advantage, Aaron attempted a pass around the outside into turn 3 but was forced into the gravel by the Malaysian. Recovering after losing 6 seconds and in 13th he set out after the field.
Morris was steadily picking off riders every lap and with three laps to got past the Petronas Moto Yamaha bikes of Abdullah and Jones on the same lap, and finally crossed the line for a well earned 6th. Aaron's fastest lap of 1 min 31.90 was just outside Fugiwarra's fastest lap of 1min 31.775. Looking forward to the next round in India on August 7th where starting with a good base setting will make a huge difference.
Special thanks to Yamaha Indonesia , Stuart Winton from SW Racing, Ian Irving and John Redding from YRD , alpinestars, RST
Main Photo: Aaron Morris on the grid
