He won the first race of the mi-bike Motorcycle Insurance Australian Superbike Championship presented by Motul at the new One Raceway and was third in the second.

“It’s been a really exciting and fun weekend for the team,” said Pearson.

“We’ve been at the pointy end of the field and scored a round win. It ticks another box by leading from start to finish in Race 1 and then wrapped it up with a third in Race 2.

“I’m really grateful for the team, and we’re becoming contenders, week in and week out.”

Pearson grabbed the Race 1 lead at the start and was in front of Josh Waters (Ducati), and pole sitter Mike Jones (Yamaha).

The charging Ant West (Yamaha) was up three spots from the start to fourth when Bryan Starling crashed his Yamaha at Turn 10, and the race was red flagged. Prior to that, Glenn Allerton had come off his BMW.

Pearson continued out in front after the restart over 9 laps and won. West finished second ahead of Cameron Dunker and Max Stauffer on their Yamahas. Waters followed ahead of Yamaha riders Waters, Arthur Sissis, John Lytras, Jones, Ty Lynch and Ryan Yanko.

Cru Halliday (Yamaha) didn’t start after his highside in Thursday practice, despite getting through official practice and qualifying.

Race 2 was red flagged on Lap 5 after a highside by Stauffer at Turn 2. His bike was hit by West who in turn, had his bike cannoned over by Dunker as they were line astern of Stauffer and had nowhere to go.

At that point. Waters was the race leader ahead of Jones, a very sore Allerton and Pearson who led until a missed gear at the Fishhook dropped him to fourth.

The race with a depleted field ran over 12 laps. Jones was the winner over Waters, Pearson, Sissis, Lytras, Lynch, Yanko, Allerton who seemed not to have the pace, Josh Soderland and Michael Edwards on their Yamahas.

“That was far better than race one, we worked on the bike between races and turned it around,” said Jones.

After his first overall win Pearson is on 219.5 points, behind Waters (256.5) and Jones (229.5) as they prepare for the final round at The Bend.