Milwaukee Yamaha rider, Josh Brookes, ended Friday’s practice sessions for round two of the 2015 MCE British Superbike Championship at Brands Hatch as the third quickest rider.
Brookes’ fastest lap-time of 45.829 was just 0.129s behind the pace-setter, James Ellison, in a tight session where the top 25 riders were covered by less than a second on the 1.2mile Indy circuit.
Brookes continued to make improvement on the brand new Yamaha R1 as the day went on and will hoping to match his pole position of last year during tomorrow’s qualifying session.
Following free practice, Brookes said: “This morning was more or less back to our base setting and then try and progress. Fortunately some of the things we’ve tried today with the changes and the direction we’ve made worked. They weren’t working at Donington, but knowing more about the bike and studying it a bit better has given us some more direction.
“We’re kind of like using a see-saw, you’ve got to rise one side before the other side can go otherwise the stuff will fall off the ends, so that’s what we’ve sort of done. Just a little step back, front, back, front, and got the bike improved, and generally we’re closer to the front now and more consistent.
“The bike’s lost a little bit of grip as a result, but I think if we can recover a little bit of grip, like back to where we were before and maintain the bike set-up that we’ve got it will be a competitive package. We’re in the ballpark for sure, but we still – of course for me I want more – but the mechanics can still a bit more out of it.”
On the other side of the garage Broc Parkes made his debut on the Brands Hatch Indy circuit, ending the day down in 23rd position. The Australian was 0.904s off the pace on his first day of riding the short circuit and will be hoping for some improvements tomorrow.
He said: “I’m struggling a bit at the last corner, but as I haven’t raced on the Indy circuit it is something I’ve not done before. That section is so important as basically it is the last split and the first split and I’m down so much on them but I’m OK on the middle part of the track, which I know, I’m not to bad there. I can see on the data where I am struggling and will see if I can change my lines tomorrow and be quicker out of there and hopefully be stronger.”
Free practice three gets underway tomorrow morning at 10:30, with the Datatag Extreme Qualifying session taking place in the afternoon at 16:05.
