Milwaukee Yamaha's Tommy Bridewell set the pace in the second day of testing at Cartagena as he became the only rider to drop into the 1m:34s lap times ahead of the team's final day on track tomorrow.

Bridewell took advantage of his previous knowledge of the Milwaukee Yamaha to quickly get down to the fastest time of the session as the team tested a combination of new linkages. The Devizies rider was feeling confident that there is more to come tomorrow before the team head to Alcaraz for a further private test.

Bridewell said:

"Overall it has been really good, yesterday after having five months off the bike it was just me sorting myself out, getting my lines in and I feel like we achieved a lot better lap time than we would have expected so that was good. Today was a bit more productive, we did a lot more work with the bike and we concentrated on some new linkages that we have got.

"In the final session we made another change and ran a further link and did a race distance on a new tyre, the Pirelli 17" SC0, the tyres worked well and we got some feedback which is what we wanted to see with the Yamaha. We made some more changes, softened the front and at the end I did a 1:34.3 lap and to be honest I am very happy with that. Every session we went faster and today I had been looking for a stronger improvement and we found it. I feel really comfortable on the bike, it is working amazing; Pete (Jennings) and the Milwaukee team are working well, and I am enjoying it which is producing the lap times."


Josh Brookes has settled into the Milwaukee Yamaha garage and believes he is adapting well with the new team on his first appearance onboard the Yamaha. The Australian used the opening day to get back into riding after the winter off and found improvements throughout the afternoon session to run consistent lap times in the 1m:35s.

Brookes said:

"Yesterday was pretty straight forward and I was quite happy with it. It was the first ride out on the bike after a long off season with the mystery of what the Yamaha was going to be like. The first few laps was getting a bit of a feel for it, getting back into a normal routine, looking for braking points, lines, all the regular stuff. It was all quite natural; there was no 'this thing is really weird to ride' and we made regular step by step progress so I was happy enough.

"This morning was a bit frustrating for lack of a better description as I was a bit lost in it all, I couldn't figure out how I could make another step forwards. This afternoon although I didn't increase my lap time by much and I was riding around on old tyres, I was doing consistent times in the 1:35s which isn't a great speed but looking for the positives in the day, this afternoon I had a much better feeling and I was a second quicker than yesterday. I am starting to learn a lot and it is just me learning the bike at this stage, so there is no revelation at the moment, which might not sound so interesting, because I have to learn what exists before we can work out as a team what we need to improve. I am happy enough at the moment as long as we keep improving and if we could find another second tomorrow or more that would be even better."

.