Josh Brookes remains unfazed after crashing out of today’s Bennetts British Superbike second practice at Knockhill and says he will come out fighting tomorrow.

The Aussie had been fastest in this morning’s first session but unable to carry the momentum through to the end of the day after tipping off his Be Wiser Ducati at turn six in the final 12 minutes.

After leading early on, Brookes was knocked down to second by FS-3 Kawasaki’s Danny Buchan with 16 minutes to run and after his crash, had to watch from the sidelines as his team-mate Scott Redding also went ahead in the closing minutes to post the fastest time.

But he’s put it down to just an easy mistake and is pleased the bike hasn’t suffered any serious damage.

“It was just one of those silly crashes,” he said. “Everybody’s hungry for more and to improve their lap times and I just came in with a bit too much speed and a bit too much angle and the front started to slide.

“I tried to load up again on the down side but there was no way of recovering it. It just let go. The bike’s actually not so bad, It’s more stone chip damage than anything. It’ll be quickly repaired and we should be able to recover.

“It would’ve been nice to go right to the end, but there’s no prizes today and we’ll come back tomorrow stronger.”

Thanks to his double at Brands Hatch a fortnight ago, Brookes is in with a chance of netting the £75,000 prize up for grabs in the Integro Summer Triple Crown – assuming he can win both races at Knockhill and both at Snetterton next month.

And despite his off this afternoon, he still looks to be one of the strongest riders of the weekend so far, something he is hoping to build on tomorrow.

“I’m trying to ride nice and smooth, the circuit is difficult to ride on a superbike, so I’m trying to calm everything down in my riding style to make easier work of setting up the bike.

“We’ve still got a couple of areas to work on - corner entry into the last turn, that seem to be a real focus point. We’ve made improvements with the bike since the test here, so things are going in the right direction. We’ve just got to keep focusing on the areas we can improve and then we should be able to put a decent bike on the grid for the race.”