Milwaukee Yamaha’s Josh Brookes has ended the first day of his Assen IDM wildcard on top of the timesheets despite riding a bike that is completely different to the R1 he rides in the MCE British Superbikes series.

The Australian is racing with the MGM Yamaha squad as a stand-in for their injured riders Max Neukirchner and Damian Cudlin, and finished the first day a little over a tenth quicker than series regular Markus Reiterberger.

Brookes’ finished the third free practice on a 1’36.841 compared to Reiterberger’s 1’36.994 with Xavier Fores in third place but more than a second down on Brookes best.

The bike Brookes is campaigning differs greatly from the Milwaukee R1 on which he currently leads the BSB series. Brookes is using different suspension, seat, fuel tank and swingarm but does have the use of full electronics, something banned in British Superbikes.

"It's been a really good first day, the first session did feel a bit strange as I had to learn the set up of the bike and although we made some initial adjustments it doesn't feel that far away. It's just that there are more options of what can be changed and he sessions are much shorter than they are in BSB so it doesn't give you as long to make the changes and test them out - it feels like the sessions go really quick,” said Brookes.

"We have made some changes and we have made improvements, particularly in our final run. We made some changes that were better with the electronics and the engine braking but the changes we have made with the shock were not quite as good. The package is still improved though on what we began the day with, but also I am getting more used to this bike now.

“It's a different feeling because of the different forks, swingarm, fuel tank etc compared to what I race in BSB, but you can also make changes with the electronics with the throttle and engine braking so I have been getting my head around that. There are also more tyre options, in BSB I know whether I want to use an SC0 and SC1, but here there are five different choices and that also makes a difference when we are making the changes to the bike when you also throw that into consideration.”

Click the link below to download FP3 results and times