The Milwaukee Yamaha team are confident of further improvement ahead of tomorrow’s final MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship races of the season at Brands Hatch after Tommy Bridewell and Josh Brookes finished the opening race in fifth and eighth respectively.

Brookes qualified on the front row for the opening race in third position with Bridewell on the second row in sixth position. Just before the race got underway rain began to fall at the Kent circuit and the team worked to get both riders ready for the changed conditions.

Brookes and Bridewell started strongly, running inside the top five over the opening laps before Bridewell ended the race in fifth whilst Brookes finished eighth.

Bridewell and Brookes will start from the third row of the grid for tomorrow’s second race in seventh and ninth respectively.

Brookes said:

“I found today really frustrating, just again two seconds before we’re going to go out, it starts raining and we didn’t have time to change the bike. Last time we tried to change the bike in the pit garage we didn’t make it out of pit lane so it meant that I had to ride the bike on the dry setup link which is I think too stiff for the wet conditions.

“I rode around the best I could and did everything I could to try and gain a position, save a position, and that was just the race, how it turned out. That was all I could do. I think we’re in with a really good chance of a podium, and certainly challenging for the win, but we’ve got to wait and see what it looks like out of the window when we wake up in the morning.”

Bridewell said:

“The conditions were very hard but all credit to the Milwaukee Yamaha team as we did the best we could in the situation. It was difficult but I rode the best I could and the bike felt good until later on and then we had a problem with the tyre so I was happy to finish fifth and we have moved up to third in the standings.”

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