After enduring two nightmare meetings in the previous two years at Thruxton, Josh Brookes would have been hoping the switch from Ducati to BMW would have turned his fortunes around at the venue this time around but sadly it wasn’t to be with just one point picked up at the weekend.

The venue has been kind to the former double champion in the past with nine victories but not of late with the weekend’s results meaning he’s now only scored four points in the last nine races around the high-speed circuit.

BMW team-team Peter Hickman fared considerably better at the weekend with eighth, ninth and tenth but Brookes, like Ducati riders Tommy Bridewell and Glenn Irwin, was left bemused by the results which saw him slip to 85 points behind leader Bridewell.

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“I can’t really explain what’s happened this weekend as I don’t really know,” the Australian, honest as always, said. “Obviously we would expect far better than the results we’ve had this weekend, there’s no way that would be a result we could even image to expect to have but from the very first session of the weekend the BMW wasn’t performing to the level that it needs to, in order to be competitive and I could feel that straightaway.”

“These things happen sometimes, and we work through processes and adjust the bike accordingly and make it work again, but it really didn’t improve at all. We made some small steps but nothing that put us in a position to be competitive and I constantly had issues with the edge grip before it got into the drive position.”

“We all tried as much as we could this weekend and the team have worked hard to try and work a solution but for whatever reason, whether it’s the harder tyre, chassis, engine, or even the rider we weren’t able to work out a fix.”

The weekend’s results have seriously dented the FHO Racing rider’s challenge for this year’s British Superbike Championship especially as he’d also struggled at the previous round at Brands Hatch. Indeed, he’s now scored just ten points from the last seven races – when Jason O’Halloran has scored almost 90 – and needs to get back to winning ways rapidly.

The BMW has traditionally gone well at Cadwell though, venue for the next round, whilst Brookes won at Oulton earlier in the year and stood on the podium at Donington, so he won’t have given up hope just yet, especially with more than 300 points still to play for.