David Johnson of Team Maxxis qualified a mere 1.4s off pole position man Tom Sykes today at the sixth round of British Superbikes at the Leicestershire circuit of Mallory Park this weekend.
The approximately 1.4m stop/start circuit saw the top 16 riders, the front four rows, qualify a mere one second within each other.  Johnson slightly out of the bracket qualified 18th overall and is at his most positive about the season ahead. 
The rider from Adelaide, Australia said: "It's gone ok, we had a few problems at the beginning of the session with the quickshifter and because of that I didn't have enough time to put in a new tyre come the end of the session,  I feel that we would have been further up the order."
Regarding his season so far he said: "We are getting quicker and quicker, we have found new things, we have got more horsepower since Snetterton.  It was the engine management that was a fair bit away from where it should have been. 
It's a shame we discovered this after Snetterton because that was a fast track."  Johnson after qualifying 21st at the Norfolk circuit finished 18th in race one followed by 14th in race two, he believes that the breakthroughs since the fifth round would have made a difference.
The South Australian 2001 125GP and 2002 600cc champion entered into the last few rounds of the Superbike championship in 2007 for the then PR Branson team, now sponsored by Maxxis Johnson is competing in his first full season. 
Since debuted onto the British scene in 2002 Johnson competed within the Superstock championship until 2005.  In addition he started a serious of wildcard rides within Superbike, whilst also finishing second overall in the Dutch Superbikes in 2006.
Regarding the season he said: "The second half will hopefully be better, we should be consistently in top fifteen and my goal is a top ten finish for sure by the end of the season.  I am really happy with the team, they are really good and the bike is looking good."