Milwaukee Yamaha’s Josh Brookes goes into tomorrow’s final timed MCE British Superbike free practice session as the fastest rider, after topping the sheets with a quick 1’15.364 at Thruxton this afternoon.
But the day did not start off that strongly for the Northern Ireland based rider, and he was not content with the original set-up of the R1. But he made improvements which saw him out-pace PBM Kawasaki’s Shane Byrne in FP1 and Moto Rapido Ducati’s John Hopkins in the final session, and a fresh tyre helped the Australian achieve that quick pace.
In the afternoon the Bringelly rider had a play around with tyre options and found he was faster than rival Byrne on the SC1s, but his crew will spend FP3 and qualifying continuing to try out which tyres work the best around the Hampshire circuit.
“It didn’t start out immediately that ok – we like to have the bike close to the same as the previous track, but Thruxton is so unique that you have to come with a whole different attitude. We started on a set-up that didn’t work that well, but we were able to improve all day and a fresh tyre left me at the top of the sheets,” said Brookes.
“In the afternoon, that meant we were able to play around with SC1 and SC2 tyres. I wasn’t terrible on the SC1 – I think I was 0.6 faster than Shakey on it – but it’s a decision we can make after tomorrow for the race.”
