Like many other riders, Josh Brookes had an up and down time at Donington Park at the weekend with round three of the British Superbike Championship seeing the FHO Racing BMW rider take third in race two with the podium sandwiched by sixth and 13th place finishes.
The results keep the 2015 and 2020 Champion well in contention though as he sits in third overall in the table, just five points adrift of leader Tommy Bridewell, the final race finish of 13th resulting in him losing the championship lead he’d briefly held after race two.
The Australian recognised it had been a challenging weekend, which is perhaps to be expected as he’s continually riding the BMW M1000RR at tracks for the first time, the test at Donington earlier in the year affected by cold weather unlike the sunny, warm conditions of the weekend.
“It’s been a bit of a challenging weekend and I’ve struggled for pace, but we’ve kept working and made good progress in Sunday morning warm-up,” he explained. “I was losing positions in the early laps of Sunday’s first race though and it looked like the wheels were coming off. I got into a good rhythm though and was able to maintain a good pace with similar lap times to the leaders although the race had strung out a bit by then.”
“I was missing opportunities and finding myself in the wrong track position at the wrong time so the safety car was a god send for me. That’s not normally the case as a safety car tends to mess up the positions and the tyres but it worked in my favour this time and I was buzzing to be back on the podium.”
Hopes were high for a repeat performance in the final race of the weekend but right from the off it was clear all wasn’t well with Brookes never climbing higher than tenth despite starting from sixth on the grid.
“The last race finished the day on a bit of a downer, I had some brake issues, and when I tried to brake with lean angle it was vibrating and accelerated the chances of losing the front. We’ve got to put this weekend behind us a little, take the points and the podium as a positive but move forward to the next round at Knockhill and put things right there."
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