Milwaukee Yamaha’s Josh Brookes says his YZF-R1 is still very much a work in progress despite qualifying at the head of the second row for tomorrow’s MCE British Superbike opener at Donington Park.

The Bringelly rider dropped his laptime to a 1’29.725 compared to poleman Ryuichi Kiyonari’s 1’29.455 but because there has been a lot of fine tuning work to be done, he hasn’t done much in the way of race distances.

“I forgot it was three to a row, so I thought I was on the front row. Before the session I was thinking about what I could realistically achieve and top four would be possible, I would be happy. It’s a minor technicality!” said Brookes, speaking to bikesportnews.com at the track.

“At the moment, I feel that we did an acceptable time yesterday morning but we haven’t improved since then. However, I had significant difficulties that we had to fix because you can’t race a bike that is chattering and doesn’t inspire confidence, especially as the tyre starts to wear and it becomes worse.

“To gather information, we had to try a load of different settings, which we have done, and we have ended up in a similar place to where we were yesterday but we have a better understanding of how to fix the problems.

“Morning warm-up won’t be a setup gamble, more a dress rehearsal of what we will run in the race. We trying to fine tune out the chatter and the bike wants to run on in some corners. If I run the bike longer, I have confidence but lose grip, if it’s shorter, I lose the front confidence but get grip.

“It’s a bit of a juggle at the moment but it’s the best package we have achieved. We have a more race ready product, it’s still a work in progress and we will put the best bits together.”