It turned out to be a day of mixed fortunes for the McAMS Yamaha duo of Josh Brookes and Tarran Mackenzie at Cadwell Park.
Both riders were inside the points in the opening race of the day, but would be left empty handed in race two as Mackenzie crashed out of proceedings and Brookes was forced out with a mechanical problem.
Brookes started the opening race from ninth and struggled with the overall feel of his bike throughout the race, crossing the line in 10th spot. After some suspension changes between the two races, Brookes was back on the pace in race two. Disaster soon struck though as he was forced to retire from proceedings whilst in fifth.
Looking back over the day, Brookes said:
“This hasn’t been a great weekend, we’ve been playing catch up all the way through and we obviously should have been stronger in race one. After some changes in the break the bike felt more my own and we were turning in fast laps and battling hard but then disaster.”
Brookes’ difficult day leaves him fourth in the championship standings, 13 points behind third place man Glenn Irwin.
On the other side of the garage, Mackenzie qualified 11th on the grid for the opening race. Mackeznie felt comfortable on the bike during the first race, despite it being his first outing at Cadwell Park on a superbike machine, and ended up finished in eighth.
Mackenzie was riding inside the top 10 once again in race two but crashed out of the race at Charlies. Despite his crash, Mackenzie was keen to focus on the positives from the weekend. He said:
“I’m obviously gutted to have crashed but overall it’s been a positive weekend considering it was my first time here. Race one was great and I felt comfortable but I didn’t have so much feel in race two which I think contributed to slipping off.”
McAMS Yamaha team manager, Grant Bunting summed up his team’s weekend:
“This has clearly been a difficult weekend for us and I’m gutted for Josh that we had a mechanical when he was running so strongly in race two. Taz had a great run out in race one but was unlucky in race two but these things happen when you’re pushing on. It was another positive weekend for Matt but overall we have plenty of things to think about before our next outing.”
Round nine of the 2018 Bennetts British Superbike Championship is a triple-header at Silverstone in three weeks time.
