Milwaukee Yamaha’s Josh Brookes was narrowly pipped to the post for pole by Buildbase BMW’s Ryuichi Kiyonari during the MCE British Superbike qualifying session at a cloudy Knockhill this afternoon.

The Australian native was 0.004 seconds slower than the former triple champion in the final qualifying outing. Brookes was leading the charge and seemed set to start on pole for race one tomorrow, but as the rider retreated to the pits, Kiyo put in a flying lap and knocked Brookes back down to second.

The Bringelly rider pushed as hard as he could and, felt that if he went any faster he would have ended up in the gravel – which in his words would have been a ‘disaster’. He was hoping that Kiyonari would have made a small mistake on his fast lap, but he didn’t and Brookes has to settle for second on the grid.

“I had some more time in the session to do a couple of laps but I told the boys in the pits that will do us, and that’s as fast as I wanted to go without crashing and for one more lap it could have been a complete disaster. I thought that was good enough to get pole,” said Brookes.

“I was watching the timing screens and I saw that Kiyo was on a good lap, and I was hoping that he would make a small mistake but he didn’t. I usually like Kiyo but I don't today.”

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