It was round 1 of the 2024 World Superbike Championship taking place at the Phillip Island Circuit in Australia over the weekend.
In the qualifying section of the weekend, Tarran came in with a best lap time of 1’31.133, meaning a starting place of 21st for race 1.
On Saturday afternoon the first race of the season was underway with Tarran making a strong start, gaining 4 places in the first 5 laps. Tarran ended up dropping 2 places from then and finished his first race in 19th.
Sunday afternoon saw the second and final race of the weekend reduced to just 11 laps due to a red flag incident 4 laps into the race. Tarran then restarted the reduced race in 18th which is where he ended up finishing.
This is what Tarran had to say on his World SBK debut: “Round 1 of the World Superbike Championship in Australia has been the first proper test of the season so it was nice to get some quality time on the bike. Finishing 19th in Saturday’s race is obviously not what we’re after but at least we were up and running. An electrical glitch in race one on Sunday saw me retire on the warmup lap but I moved forward another place in race two coming in 18th and more valuable track time”.
Tarran then said: “My next stop is a Barcelona two-day test where we can use our data from Australia to move things in the right direction. The Honda is quite different to other superbikes I’ve ridden so I’m working hard to adapt with every lap”.
We’ll next see Tarran out on the track at Circuit de Barcelona, Spain, testing out the bike and the track before round 2 of the World SBK coming a week later.