FHO Racing BMW's Josh Brookes was very much the talk of Silverstone after leaving the opening round of the 2023 British Superbike Championship (BSB) with a first win since 2020 in his pocket, as well as the early series lead.
It was the perfect start his tenure at the FHO Racing BMW team which although still very much in its infancy, looks to be a match made in heaven.
The results were even more impressive given the 2015 and 2020 Champion had had very little dry track time during pre-season testing.
“It’s been the perfect weekend and to come away with the championship lead is ideal,” the delighted Australian said afterwards.
“You’re always optimistic when you come into a weekend that you have a good bike and you have a good package and what we had this weekend enabled me to finish on the podium in all three races and take a win. It’s the perfect place to build from for the rounds to come.”
Brookes, whose last victory came at Brands Hatch when he clinched the 2020 title, admitted he’d thought about tasting victory in BSB again for a long time following two difficult years with the Paul Bird Motorsport Ducati team.
“I’ve definitely spent a long time thinking about winning again,” he said after his victory in the second race of the weekend.
“The last two years have been quite hard to accept and people doubt you – and I don’t blame them for that – whether fellow riders, team members, spectators, whoever they may be so it definitely feels good to win again albeit a bit strange under the red flag. I’d been leading for a long time though and I’m looking forward to the next win!”
Brookes was in contention for the win in all three races and after a few mistakes in Saturday’s season opener, when he ran deep into a number of corners, he looked to be on rails all day on Sunday although he was quick to recognise it’s still early days.
Going on to win the first of Sunday's longer feature races after taking an early lead and protecting it to lap 27 when the red flag was deployed and the result called
“We made some small changes to the engine braking and the bike was a lot smoother on corner entry. The bike was still moving around a bit but not enough to stand out and both the bike and my rhythm were more consistent.”
“As a racer, you always have this idea that things will go smoothly and the results will come but you also have to have this sense of realism due to the nature and competitiveness of the championship.”
The results give Brookes the overall BSB lead coming away from Silverstone, albeit a more slender advantage than previous years following a shake up of the new Title Showdown format.
