Josh Brookes’ strong start to this year’s British Superbike Championship continued at Oulton Park at the weekend with the FHO Racing BMW rider taking his second win of the season.

Though unable to hold onto the overall championship advantage, two more top six finishes meant he ended the weekend just four points adrift of new leader Glenn Irwin.

Practice and qualifying saw him on the pace in both the wet and dry conditions and, indeed, his pace in the former saw him claim pole position for Sunday’s Sprint race. And the former double champion led all the way although, like Silverstone, he was denied the opportunity of taking the chequered flag when rain caused the race to be stopped two laps early.

“It was great to take the win and although it probably looked like I was sat out front having an easy time, it was actually difficult leading due to the conditions,” he explained. “I could see from my dash the lap times early on weren’t impressive, so I tried to improve as I was expecting an attack which is normally the case in BSB!”

“I tried to eke a tenth here and there but when I did the rear would spin and I’d have a moment which cost me time so I just focused on trying to be as methodical as I could and not make any mistakes, also trying to maintain my pace.”

“I could see the rain coming a lap before with a few spots on my visor and when I came round Island bend the next time, the rain was more noticeable. I desperately didn’t want to put my hand up for the red flag as I wanted to win by taking the chequered flag but it was really greasy so just knew we couldn’t keep racing in those conditions.”

Monday started equally well for the Australian when he topped the timesheets in the wet warm-up session but the longer 18-lap races didn’t go quite as well as the day before. Indeed, although he ran consistently in the leading pack, it never quite looked as if he had the pace to challenge for the win, or even the podium positions, and he had to settle for fifth and sixth place finishes.

“I was happy in morning warm up in the wet conditions, but we made a change to the bike for the first race after what we learnt the previous day and although it looked perfect in theory, it just didn’t work for me in the opening race,” he explained.

“The change wasn’t so bad on its own but in conjunction with the rest of the bike settings, I just didn’t feel at ease and wasn’t able to do the lap times of earlier, which meant we suffered and didn’t get the results we’d hoped for.”

“For the final race the only real option we had was to go back to where we were, which meant the bike was as good as it was in race one. I feel that maybe our rivals had moved forward a little though, not much, but a little.

"So even though I did better lap times for myself, I wasn’t able to fight for the podium. It was such a small margin, and I was close to the lead group, but just wasn’t able to bridge that gap or make a pass."

Nevertheless, it’s been a great start to his 2023 campaign with six top five finishes, including four podiums, from the first six races and he’s immediately established himself as a title contender once more.

Brookes now heads to the North West 200, a venue he’s excelled at in the past with three podiums – including third in the feature Superbike race twelve months ago – as well as being a former outright lap record holder around the high-speed road circuit.

CLICK HERE to view the 2023 BSB Championship Standings after Round 2 of 11