Like fellow Australian Jason O’Halloran, Josh Brookes lost ground to British Superbike Championship leaders Glenn Irwin and Tommy Bridewell at Oulton Park at the weekend but his results were a marked improvement on previous rounds.

Since finishing on the podium at Snetterton in early July, the former double champion had managed just 34 points at the following three rounds and looked to be a totally different rider to the one that had led the series earlier in the year.

However, whilst not able to replicate his victory at the Cheshire circuit in May this time around, something he wasn’t anticipating this time around, three fifth place finishes was a much better return and got him a lot closer to the sharp end.

“Three fifths this weekend is an improvement on previous rounds, and I wasn’t even going to be greedy this weekend, I was hoping for a podium rather than a win!” he said afterwards.

“The three fifth places are the best we could achieve. The last race was strong, and I stayed close to the lead group for the longest period of time, but we’re still missing a couple of tenths, and we have to be realistic that the lap times I’m able to do aren’t good enough to rival the podium.”

“We have got to keep our heads down, keep working away and improving. Coming back to a circuit we’ve been to before has boosted our results as we’ve just set the bike up as it was before and focused on the electronics. We’ve also been to the next two circuits before, and I anticipate that to work in our favour.”

“People forget we’ve got a new bike this year and I think people just assume you’re going to go to the next round and pick up where you expect and it’s proven not to be like that, as we’ve had a lot of work to do.”

Whilst the results were far more positive at Oulton, it failed to help Brookes’ championship cause with the Ducati’s of Irwin and Bridewell dominating once before. He remains in seventh overall in the championship standings, now 110.5 points adrift of Irwin.