Oulton Park proved to be a mixed bag for 2015 and 2020 Bennetts British Superbike Champion Josh Brookes with a strong, and competitive, fourth place in Sunday’s opening race offset by disappointing finishes of eighth and tenth on Monday.

The MCE Ducati rider gave himself a shot at the podium on Sunday after an excellent performance in the wet qualifying session where he placed second. A shortened race ultimately meant he had to accept fourth although it was clear he was getting stronger as the race wore on.
 
“We made a good step forward in FP3 and the lap times were both a lot quicker and more consistent meaning I was closer to where I needed to be,” he reflected.

“We made good improvements and I was getting stronger and getting myself into a position to attack late on in the race with a podium on the cards, but the red flag ended the race early. Fourth was a lot more like it though.”
 
With the clear aim of a podium finish in Monday’s races, the Australian and his team went the wrong direction with their set-up changes for the first race of the day though and a disappointing tenth was the outcome. 13th on the grid for the final race also showed that pace had been lost so further changes had to be made ahead of the final race where he improved his result to eighth.
 
“Monday’s first race was disappointing as we made the wrong changes to the bike,” he admitted. “It just didn’t work out. I went backwards and faded pretty much from the start so it was disappointing for all concerned.
 
“We put the bike closer to how it had been on Sunday for the last race but with what we’d learned earlier in the day, we were also to make a few changes the other way too.

"It was only small changes but it worked better albeit not with the lap times to compete for the podium. It was obviously difficult starting a long way back on the grid too but I was happy to recover some form at the end albeit only small gains.”
 
With 35 points on the board from the first six races, Brookes is obviously disappointed with his start to the season but, equally, knows where he can, and needs to, improve in order to get back on to the podium.
 
“We definitely need to make improvements with the bike as we’re running a similar pace to the 2019 and 2020 seasons but things have obviously moved on since then. I’m a few tenths down each lap on where we need to be and we need to get the bike dialled in earlier in the weekend as you can’t afford to be way back in the pack on the opening day.”