Josh Brookes claimed his first podium finish of the 2014 MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship with the Milwaukee Yamaha team at Brands Hatch today after fighting back from his fourth row start in the second race.

In the opening race of the day Brookes was pushing at the front of the pack and crashed unhurt at Druids, ending his race and putting him back on row four for the second race. However a hard-fought race two saw the Australian charge through the field to close in on race leader Shane Byrne over the final laps to claim second place. Tommy Bridewell had a challenging weekend as he pushed to find a setting for the two races, however he was able to finish both races in the top ten scoring a seventh and ninth place result in the two races.


Brookes said:

“I was really happy with how the second race went. Over the weekend Milwaukee Yamaha have given me everything I needed to do the job and all the mistakes have been mine so I can’t blame anyone but myself. Starting from tenth in race two wasn’t ideal but I didn’t know where I could finish so I wasn’t sure how it was all going to pan out. My focus was on whoever was in front of me, that might sound stupid, but I was looking at one rider at a time and nothing else. As I made passes I built confidence and caught Shane but it was too late and I wasn’t in a position to make a pass. I am not over the moon with second because we started the weekend with the potential to win races, but it wasn’t to be. We will take the second place and see what we can do at Oulton Park because in the past that has been a superb track for the Milwaukee Yamaha.”

Bridewell said:

“We didn’t have the pace to be up there fighting in the races today and we need to have a look at our settings so that we can come back stronger at Oulton Park. We made a good start in the races but then we just couldn’t match the leaders and that was disappointing for me. I couldn’t have ridden any harder today and I am now ready to focus with the team on how we can rectify the pace we had here ready for the next round. Seventh place in the standings is still points towards our championship, so it could have been worse, but I have my goals and winning is one of them.”

Team owner Shaun Muir concluded:

“Overall it has been quite a frustrating weekend for Milwaukee Yamaha after our strong pre-season testing campaign and also our good start in free practice. Before qualifying both riders had the pace to be fighting for podiums but four crashes put us on the back foot. Josh tried to dominate from the start in race one and just lost the front and crashed however he showed his real strength in character to be fighting again in race two for the podium finish. Today Tommy had two difficult races but we know that he will come back stronger.”

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