Josh Brookes may have taken his 50th series victory at round two of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship at Snetterton but the Australian was left with mixed emotions at the end of the weekend after only taking fifth place in the final race.

The VisionTrack Ducati rider was keen to claw back points lost at the opening round after the well documented coming together with Andrew Irwin but whilst he scored a healthy 56 points at Snetterton, championship leader Glenn Irwin top scored with 58 to extend his series lead.
 
“I felt a little bit off in Saturday’s race and couldn’t attack like I’d like and I’ve got to look at all possibilities as to why that was. There was lots of passing going on but I didn’t feel I was riding as aggressively as I know I can so there was mixed emotions with second place.”
 
The 2015 Champion came out on Sunday with a clear goal and after making more changes to the Ducati Panigale V4 R to try and cure the ongoing chatter issues, brought on by the new-for-2020 Pirelli tyres, he took his first victory of the season and 50th in total since joining the BSB series in 2009.
 
“It doesn’t matter how many wins you’ve had, they’re all just as hard as each other and I had to fight hard for that win. I’ve been suffering with chatter all weekend, as many riders have, but we continually made progress and the bike was at its best in the first race. I felt strong and confident I could maintain the same pace throughout and just focused on doing the best race I could and not make any mistakes.”
 
However, the good work of first and second was undone in the final race of the weekend when he slipped back to fifth and although he was contesting the win throughout, Irwin’s victory saw him extend the gap to Brookes to 36 points.
 
“We’ve been through a lot of changes over the weekend; what an emotional roller coaster. The settings weren’t perfect in Sunday’s first race but they were closer to where they should be and winning was obviously a positive.
 
“But the last race was very frustrating and my end position was far from satisfying. The bike didn’t seem to work as well so I’m just disappointed and frustrated as I wasn’t able to control the race. We still have to work and make improvements but to take a first and a second is a strange feeling to be disappointed with. We will come back stronger.”