Reigning Bennetts British Superbike king Josh Brookes escaped serious injury in a fast crash at Silverstone today.

The VisionTrack Ducati rider went down at Becketts in the final test session and ended 12th on the combined timesheets.

“I’ve taken a lot of skin off the little finger and there is a risk of infection as it’s down to the bone but apart from that I’m OK and my finger is fine," said the Australian after a trip to hospital.

"There are no other injuries so it’s just a case of getting it cleaned up. I’m still working out what happened in the crash, but the track was cooling down and I perhaps carried a bit too much brake so maybe that’s what happened.

"The test was good to a point, but we did a lot of experimenting and didn’t really find a lot that improved our existing package. It’s now a case of working on what we know best and finding the consistency we need.”