Tyco Suzuki’s Josh Brookes spent the first day and half of his time at the Oulton Park circuit ‘chasing’ issues with his bike and eventually his team found that there was a problem with an injector, which prevented the Aussie moving forward and progessing his race pace for the day ahead. Even with the issues the rider is happy with how he performed and raced the best that he could.

“I had problems with the bike for the first day and a half and didn’t really discover what the problem was, and didn’t actually realise that there was a problem. An injector was not working correctly and made the throttle connection feel quite bad and I wasn’t able to ride comfortably or smoothly,” said Brookes, speaking to bikesportnews.com at the circuit this evening.

“We worked with the normal settings to improve the connection feeling and then when we weren’t achieving what the bike was needing we figured there must be another problem that is stopping it being corrected so the guys figured out an injector was not working correctly and it was rectified for qualifying. But I feel like I started Friday practice at qualifying, so the first day and a half was wasted and chasing a tail seeing what the problem is with the bike.

“I am a little bit behind the eight ball and I think I rode well for fourth as we haven’t moved on with the bike because we have been chasing other problems. Hopefully something improves for tomorrow and I can put in a better finish.”

Brookes successfully held off the charge of Halsall Racing’s Tommy Bridewell, and the Suzuki rider was able to cross the line in fourth, leaving the Devizes lad with a fifth place finish. But finishing fourth does not help Brookes’ cause when it comes to the Showdown, as he failed to pick up any podium credits this afternoon.

“I didn’t realise it was Tommy Bridewell behind me as I was just riding the best race I could. I stayed in fourth and didn’t get any podium credits, so whether I came fourth or last it made no difference essentially, because I don’t take any of that across to the Showdown, but I rode the best I could and that was fourth.”