Be Wiser Ducati’s Josh Brookes managed to make some productive progress out of the disaster he suffered at the Silverstone Bennetts British Superbike round which holds him in good stead for this weekend’s Oulton round.

Brookes was able to top last Thursday’s timesheets at the Cheshire track after introducing a raft of changes to the Panigale V4R which had been highlighted by setup issues at the opening round.

“I was obviously really pleased to go fastest in the dry at the test that is obviously the goal every time you go to the track,” said the Australian.

“I was actually really pleased with the progress at the test as there was a few things that needed to be addressed both before and after Silverstone.

“I thought Silverstone would have been a more productive opportunity for us and the bike, but it was just the way the weekend went. We didn’t get the chance to really explore a couple of set-up changes that needed to be made.

We ended up with a best compromise at that time but that meant it left a feeling of ‘if we had tried this, or we had tried that then maybe it would have been a better direction’.

“Leaving Silverstone we were disappointed with the races but still focused on resolving some of the problems and so coming into the Oulton Park test that was what we wanted to work through – those setting changes we didn’t get a chance to do at Silverstone and the bike performed really well.

“After the initial changes, it was all rear suspension-related, so all that combined was what we worked through. Once we completed that circle of changes, we tweaked a couple of other things and for me getting more comfortable and my position on the bike and that was really positive too.

“Silverstone’s races highlighted some areas the needed focus and you don’t get the opportunity to recognise that until you are in a race with all the other riders, so there was a balance of what we needed to try during the test and what became relative after the races at Silverstone.

For me despite what happened at Silverstone it all counts. If we hadn’t had Silverstone races we wouldn’t have got that environment to test where we are stronger or weaker, we had no results in the races but it was still a valuable weekend to learn about the bike and its performance.

“It’s again the instigator to the changes we made at the Oulton Park test and that made us fastest and we wouldn’t have had that without having Silverstone, so it all works together.”

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