Anvil Hire TAG Yamaha’s Josh Brookes was the fourth fastest rider during the second MCE British Superbike free practice session at Oulton Park but spent a lot of time in the garage as his team were trying to overcome gearing issues.
The former British Superbike champ set a 1’34.596 but before his strong lap time he was struggling to find the correct gearing setup on the R1. In the earlier FP1 outing his crew started with a similar setup from the test sessions last week, and chose the afternoon to try out different options.
There was also a slight problem with the quick-shifter to ocontend with, which meant that the Bringelly rider lost out more some valuable track time. In the end Brookes did make it out of the pits and with a fresh tyre put himself inside the top five fastest times during free practice.
Brookes still holds the lap record at the Cheshire track and was only 0.1 seconds off that time today, and even though improvements have been made Brookes is adamant that there is still more work to do.
“I was on SC0 all day. I changed the gearing as that had a significant effect on the rest of the progress. This morning I ran on the setup that I had from the test which was OK but still not absolutely what I was in search of,” said Brookes, speaking to bikesportnews.com from the track.
“The gearing was an issue on top, so that is why in the afternoon we started with a different gearing - which changed the wheelbase and that changed how the bike acts and a few changes were needed to be made to correct the balance. I think we lost a bit of time as the quick-shifter, whatever the electric mechanism is in the gearshifter that cuts the ignition in the gear change - stopped working and we had to change one of those and also during the session I was not happy with the first gearing option that we had so we had two options to try.
“The first one was not very satisfying as I went with the other option and we had to change a chain during the session, it is not a major job but it eats up a bit of time and the end was kind of rushed and we had moments to spare with getting an adjustment to the bike that was going to suit the change of wheel base, as the chain was different and also put a fresh tyre in to see if we could do the lap time.
“At the end it sort of came together, the bike is a lot closer and it is an acceptable setup and we are not miles away, but I still find I will be happy with further changes.”
