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Phillip Island WSBK test: Crash hampers Brookes after initial progress

Milwaukee BMW’s Josh Brookes didn’t make any huge steps forward on the second day of World Superbike testing at Phillip island after the effects of a third-gear crash late on Monday coupled with scorching temperatures and red-flag down time yesterday hampered his progress.

Brookes was spat over the high side of his S1000RR at turn 11 - the same place team-mate Karel Abraham went down - bruising the left side of his body but the larger difficulty has come with the throttle connection which Brookes and the team haven’t been able to nail down. The Australian believes they have made some progress Down Under but maybe not so much as he would have liked on day two.

“We have been struggling a little for grip - which is why the crash happened - so we shortened the wheelbase and found some grip but that made the bike unstable and difficult to ride. We persevered with short wheelbase today whereas yesterday we were long and just couldn’t improve. We set it back long again but then there were red flags,” said Brookes, speaking to bikesportnews.com.

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“We haven’t got the throttle connection right and we have done so much work with the chassis. We’re not a million miles away with it but while the electronics part isn’t quite sorted out, I can’t determine how the chassis is.

“Today has been a trial and error situation, but somewhere in the data is valuable lap time. It’s been less satisfying than Monday in terms of making progress, but we know that one session could turn the whole bike around. It’s too early to say where we’ll be in the races, but I think a top eight finish would be realistic. Any less would be under-performing, any higher would be over-performing, so only time will tell.”

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