Josh Brookes (Tyco Suzuki) - Photo Credit: Motorsport Vision
Josh Brookes will stay with the TAS Racing team for an assault on the 2012 British Superbike Championship with the Northern Irish squad also securing a title sponsorship deal with Tyco Security Products.
The team announced the deal at the Motorcycle Live show in Birmingham and Brookes is hopeful that he can improve on his 2011 performance where he reached the Championship Showdown before finishing fifth overall.
“I thought I was heading home for the Australian summer for four months but I'm delighted to be back in the UK for a few days to re-sign for TAS Racing. I love the new look of the bike in Tyco Suzuki colours and there's no better place to get the whole season going again than the NEC bike show. It took us a while to get things to click this season, but when it did we proved how good a package we are together, so I'm looking forward to taking that to the next level in 2012. I really enjoy working with the boys at TAS and I love the Northern Ireland lifestyle – so at least there will be no surprises when I return to start the season. The goal as always is to win the championship and I really believe we can hit the ground running and do the business from round one in April. I'm looking forward to it.”
Tyco Suzuki team manager Philip Neill agrees that the championship has to be the aim for 2012 and hopes to announce a teammate for Brookes in the near future.
“Our aim this year with a two rider team in BSB is to target the championship, and we believe re-signing Josh as our headline rider is a good start in making that a realistic target. He showed us glimpses of brilliance this year with his race wins and some superb lap times. It's fair to say it probably took us a bit longer than we anticipated to get to know each other, and for Josh to gel with the TAS Racing GSX-R1000 Superbike – so a second year together was always going to be beneficial. It's good to get the deal finalised and great to have Josh back onboard. Now we need to concentrate on getting him a team-mate to complete the line-up.”
Phil Dashey, General Manager & Vice President of Tyco Security Products, is excited about the partnership with TAS and hopes to be a part of a title winning team next year.
“Tyco is thrilled to partner with TAS Racing and Suzuki GB for the 2012 BSB season. The team has shown unrivalled levels of professionalism and a pure passion for the sport, and having spent time with Philip, the team and Suzuki – I believe they are a perfect match for Tyco, our products and our partners. Tyco's global R&D site for our cutting edge security systems is actually based not too far from TAS in Belfast, where we have almost 200 brilliant people. Our participation in BSB, so far, has been exciting enough, but it's time to make our assault on the championship.”
