Josh Brookes has had a difficult Bennetts British Superbike Championship title defence, however the reigning champion hit back after the opening day of Showdown action to lead the SUPERPICKS Free Practice times at Oulton Park.
Brookes claimed his first podium finishes of the season last time out at Silverstone and secured his place in the Showdown by just four points. The Australian was feeling positive after the opening day’s work at Oulton Park, topping the session by 0.173s from Peter Hickman as the Title Fighters now look towards tomorrow’s opening BikeSocial race.
Brookes said: “I am obviously happy to finish the day on top, we haven’t topped a day after free practice this year, so obviously that’s a positive!
“The changes we’ve been making at recent rounds, I would say the last three or four, have been quite outside of a range I would normally work in. Before coming here, I was a little bit pessimistic that that could work at this circuit due to its nature, so we’ve made some other adjustments to counteract the fact that the circuit is so undulating and that wheelie is always an issue.
“What is surprising is the area we’re able to make the bike work now - I never would’ve dreamed of trying some of the settings we’ve got in the bike currently in years before, but I’ve been forced into it through lack of performance. When we’ve discovered a problem we are now having to make new changes to get past it.
“At the moment it’s a little bit, for lack of a better description, slightly a bit of trial and error, we’re kind of seeing what works and using our best judgement to guide the changes. Today it feels alright so we’ll see what tomorrow brings.
“I can never expect to be anywhere at the moment because the season has been so up and down for me, nothing surprises me. When you’ve been quick before you always know that you can do it again. If you’ve never been fast I suppose it’s hard to set a point that you’d like to get to, or a point you think you can get to.
“But having set lap times before, won races before, won championships before, I already know what it feels like to go quick, so I’m always trying to repeat what I’ve done in the past and not only repeat what I’ve done in the past but if you can, set a new standard. So at the moment I’m not surprised by anything I’m doing because it’s all things I’ve done before.
“In recent times I haven’t had the results, so we’ve been forced to make changes that don’t feel natural to try and find a solution to these problems. As the year’s gone on we’ve understood better, so now we can actually put something together that works.”