MCE British Superbike series leader Josh Brookes will start tomorrow’s Assen IDM races from the front row after the short Superpole session in Holland this afternoon.

Brookes, who is riding for the MGM Yamaha team, put in his best-ever lap of the Dutch track to finish just 0.043s behind series regular Markus Reiterberger. Brookes’ last fast lap was a 1’36.175 compared to the BMW man’s 1’36.132 with Xavier Fores taking third place on a 1’36.416 and former World Suoerbike race winner Lorenzo Lanzi finishing fourth.

"In qualifying one we just went with the race tyre and we made a good lap, but we were still making changes with the bike and I felt like we still hadn’t found the perfect setup. In qualifying two we tried the Superpole tyre, but I didn’t get the full advantage of it because there’s too many things changing all the time.," said Brookes.

"Every session I make changes on the bike, always trying to understand which tyre is better for the race, so the qualifying tyre was just another element to think about. I didn’t make the perfect lap with it, so we decided for Superpole we should really look at tomorrow.

"Of course we wanted to make the perfect lap and be on pole, but we made a judgement, which is more important; the races tomorrow or one fast lap today, so we focused on the races tomorrow. Anyway, I was able to get into position two, so it was not so far away even with the race tyre.”