Milwaukee Yamaha’s Josh Brookes will take this weekend’s MCE British Superbike round at Brands Hatch on a day-by-day basis as development work on the brand new R1 continues.

The Bringelly rider took a lightly-modified version of a stock bike on to the podium at Donington Park and was then baulked by a crashing Ryuichi Kiyonari in race two but lapped faster than the leaders on his way back through to sixth.

“I think we should be pretty good at Brands Hatch because we have ridden Alcarras in Spain when the bike was new, and then we went to Cartagena, then we went to Donington Park for the test and then the race,” said Brookes.

“Throughout that period we have made a lot of changes to the bike, but it has reacted consistently over the different tracks we have gone to so I think we should be able to go to Brands Hatch and not have to turn everything upside down with the setting.

“It will still be tough at Brands Hatch, all of the teams will get stronger and we will have a lot of competition on the track, so we have to improve at a faster rate than them and hopefully because we are on a new bike I think it will improve. Putting it all into the big picture we feel confident for Brands Hatch but we still have to take it day by day.”