There was more podium success for the Milwaukee Yamaha team at Oulton Park yesterday, with Josh Brookes finishing inside the top three in both races.
The Australian pushed eventual winner, Tommy Bridewell, all the way in race one, finishing in second place, just +0.160s behind the Tyco BMW rider.
Reflecting on race one, Brookes said: “In the first race I bodged up the lights a bit at the start of the race. I don’t know why, but everything seemed to go into slow motion. I saw them go out, but I just didn’t go, it just didn’t happen and I had three riders around me. I just floated into the first corner and took an ideal line and it gave me the lead which was really lucky. I got away with it I guess!
“I was trying to force Tommy [Bridewell] to make a mistake but then I started to lose a bit of grip so I had to change my plan. I was trying to maintain the lap time and there wasn’t an opportunity to take an advantage.”
Brookes then recovered to a third place finish in race two following a poor getaway from pole position. The 32-year-old took full advantage of a collision between Shane Byrne and Ryuichi Kiyonari with only a couple of laps remaining.
He added: “I was pleased to get third in race two; in general I made a few mistakes at the start and I thought I was going good, but everyone was riding so well. Everyone at the front doesn’t normally make mistakes and if we do it is a crash, so I sat there at the back waiting to make a mistake or force a pass but it never showed.
“With Kiyo and Shakey going down it gifted me the third position and I will take it, it is too hard to get results in this championship so I am pleased with third.”
On the other side of the garage it was another disappointing day for series newcomer, Broc Parkes.
The former MotoGP rider was involved in a collision with Team WD40 Kawasaki’s Jack Kennedy at Hislop’s Chicane on the opening lap of race one.
Feeling the effects from the first race incident, Parkes was unable to keep up with the pace in race two and ended up finishing down in 22nd place.
Afterwards, Parkes said: “It’s not been a great day for me today. I got a good start to the first race but then got t-boned by another rider into Hizzys. He just hit me and then the bike was badly damaged which meant the boys had to fix it all up but then we had a few problems in the second race, but we need to check the data.
“As for me, my body has taken two beatings this weekend and both times I have been up in the air and landing on my shoulder and back. I felt sore in race two but I did my best – it has just been a disaster of a weekend. I want to look forward now to the test at Snetterton.”
The weekend’s results mean that Brookes now finds himself third in championship, 15 points behind the new series leader, James Ellison.
