HM Plant Honda's Josh Brookes returns to the British Superbike Championshipthis weekend at Croft following injury and a two race ban to qualify on the front row, less than a second off the pole position time.
The Australian rider is thrilled to be back on track and has made great progress this weekend with regards to preparing for Sunday’s races in addition to further testing. “The first session was good, then we were trying stuff with the bike yesterday afternoon and we got consistent feedback.  It was a very productive day but when you’re back in tenth it's not where I want to be, even though we were testing," said the Aussie, speaking to bikesportnews.com this afternoon.
“This morning I wasn’t where I wanted to be either, I had improved my lap time but was not really comfortable with my position as such. We re-evaluated the bike and had a couple of little things, there was nothing really great so it was fine tuning and eventually it added up to something.  We then went out in qualifying and did that.”
The Honda was setup from a combination of settings from both of his bikes, one bike had the better shock settings for grip and the other had better fork handling settings to deal with the bumps.  When put together this meant it was down to fine tuning to progress any further.
“For the first qualifying session we changed the compression, then for the second it was tyre pressures and for the third we had a bit more spring.  I can’t make any big changes now and to be honest I don’t’ know what we would change, I know the bike isn’t as good as other bikes in some areas but think we have room to improve," Brookes added.
“In the first sector the first turn and into turn two there are still some ways to get that better.  On the exit of turn two there’s a chicane and I am not happy that I am not doing it as good as some of the others or at least not on every lap.  I need to fine tune my lap to do my best not a mediocre one.
“In the middle sector I think it is the bike, I have tried to do my best but can’t do anymore and in the final sector I think it is both the me and the bike, but don’t think there is a big improvement that can be done in that sector.”
Brookes has maintained his fitness while waiting for his return this weekend and his thumb has caused him no problems at all like it never happened.  The team will change only thing for tomorrow's morning warm up to try and see if that helps him up his game even further ready for the afternoon races.