Althea Honda's Tommy Hill has a frustrating opening to his World Superbike campaign at Phillp Island with technical gremlins conspiring to keep him off the track.

Hill's Fireblade was beset with mechanical issues throughout the first two session and only get a few minutes' quality time to set any sort of laptime but the Briton still managed a 1'34.123 in qualifying (1'33.845 in free practice).

”This morning we had a good first part of the practice, but in the last fifteen minutes we had an engine problem. The team worked very hard to get the bike ready for the afternoon session, but of course we missed the first
twenty minutes of the qualifying session to check if everything was working
well on my bike," said Hill.

"I started to push hard to improve my lap time but unfortunately near the end of the practice when we fitted new tyres we had another problem with the quickshifter and I was not able to improve my best lap time.

"My mechanics are now working to change the quickshifter and tomorrow I hope to work with my team effectively in order to improve my bike set up and to enter Superpole."