Milwaukee BMW’s Josh Brookes has focused on chassis setup and mechanical grip during his first test on the S1000RR at Jerez, putting aside a majority of the electronics aids available in order just to get a proper feeling for the bike and tyres.

Brookes got down to a 1’41.826 during his final run of the day and ended just 1.9s off Tom Sykes’ best of the test, set on qualifying tyres. Brookes had to contend with a wet track yesterday morning and fog this morning as well as having to learn Jerez again as he hadn’t ridden at the Spamnish track since 2007. The reigning BSB champ is looking to take out some bigger chunks of time at Aragon but will again have to learn the circuit.

“We have been making marginal steps the same as you do between free practice and qualifying, let’s say. We need to make some bigger steps so we can get the bike in a range where it is fairly close, and then fine tune to find those extra tenths. We have pushed electronics to the side today as we can add that in when it is working well,” said Brookes, speaking to bikesportnews.com at the track.

“Once we have got a base with the chassis settings we can start to add things anti-wheelie and launch control. We had a couple more glitches with the quickshifter again but we found some time on the last run too. The chassis has to be the priority because it dictates everything else. Once we get those basic essentials in a place where the numbers add up and make sense, then we will have the confidence to add more. I have got to find the big chunks in the bike itself.”