Milwaukee Yamaha kicked off the fifth round of the MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship at Knockhill with Josh Brookes holding third position and Broc Parkes 25th with both riders expecting more tomorrow ahead of Datatag Qualifying tomorrow.

Brookes had been building momentum throughout the two sessions as he wrestled to tame the Milwaukee Yamaha over the short, demanding Knockhill circuit, but with 0.322s to the fastest lap of the session the Australian is confident of challenging for more in qualifying.

Parkes had his first taste of the Knockhill circuit this morning and has been getting to grips with the new circuit, knowing that the smallest of margins makes a huge difference as he bids to climb the order ahead of qualifying.

Josh Brookes

“My main premonition turned out to be quite correct. The bike seems to wheelie quite a lot here, which we have had at some other tracks too and it has been something we have been working on to improve. This track, because the last corner comes out of a slow corner with acceleration up the hill that makes it worse. The first session out I didn’t have good confidence and put it on the line I wanted so to finish third; I was quite surprised because I felt worse than where the lap times put me.

“This afternoon we made some big improvements and the bike felt much more familiar with what I was expecting it to feel like. The track needs a different balance with the suspension, but everyone else went quicker too so the amount of improvement we made was quite unseen as everyone else must have been in a similar situation. We are still third but Shakey went out on new tyres at the end and I did my best lap on say lap 15 on the tyre so I think we didn’t do our best lap time as we didn’t put in new tyres but we are working on putting a whole race package tomorrow and not just focusing on that one lap.”  

Broc Parkes

“Today has been a bit of an eye-opener, everyone that comes here for the first time though has the same feeling I think. To do a lap I thought would be difficult but not as tough as it was to begin with, but I am not that far away. In the second session we used one tyre for the whole session and my times are consistent, but I think to make the next step we need to make a few more tweaks and then try a new tyre to make some laps and that will make a big difference. In general I think tomorrow I am confident we can close again as every time I was on the bike I was nearly a second of a lap faster, so I need to find another half a second and then make the next step.”