Milwaukee Yamaha new boy Josh Brookes has taken his first shakedown laps on the YZF-R1 at Cartagena and rekcons he feels at ease with the bike, lapping in the middle 1’36s with no problems so far.

Brookes plays down the switch from Suzuki to Yamaha but the bikes are completely different animals and the Aussie was at the top of the unofficial timesheets today, and there will be more to come tomorrow.

“First day has been quite good, I hopped on the bike and felt at ease with it, not quite so foreign as a lot of people told me it would be. I didn’t think it would be a big change and happily it hasn’t been. It’s got handlebars and wheels, so everything has been good in that respect,“ said Brookes, speaking to bikesportnews.com at Cartagena.

“The point of today was just to get a load of laps under our belt. You always feel a bit rusty on the first day, so we’ve done a good job in that respect. The lap times have had a respectable improvement, the communication is good and on top of the fact we are on a new bike, everything seems to be acceptable. We did some good times on a worn tyre as well, so this is a good start.

“You need to have an open mind when you join a new team and it has been a pleasant surprise there have been no gremlins I wasn’t prepared for. There aren’t significant problems so far, or nothing that isn’t working, it is a slow and steady series of adjustments.

“We’ve moved the balance of the bike a bit to correct some corner exit but it has been a series of eliminations like it would be over the course of a race weekend, but I am sure Mick (Shanley, crew chief) will throw some stuff at me.”