Milwaukee Yamaha’s Josh Brookes believes that his wildcard in this weekend’s IDM Superbike round at Assen will not only be useful track time for the upcoming MCE BSB round but also useful in terms of what other teams are doing with the R1.

Brookes will join the MGM Yamaha squad at the Dutch circuit and ride one of their own R1s as he stands in for their injured riders Max Neukirchner and fellow Aussie Damian Cudlin. He was supposed to be paired with Kev Coghlan but the Scotsman was hospitalised on Sunday after a crash at Schleiz.

“I’m looking forward to it because it will be a good reference marker as to what other teams are doing with the bike. Obviously after two double wins on the bounce, what we are doing is not wrong but it will be good to see how MGM approach their R1,” said Brookes, speaking to bikesportnews.com this morning.

“The bikes are different. They don’t have the trick suspension, triple-clamps, swingarm and fuel tank that we have, but they are allowed to use electronics, which we aren’t, so I will be able to see what they have done and how the bike responds compared to ours.”