Josh Brookes maintained his unbroken run of front row qualifying performances at Knockhill today, claiming third position on the grid for tomorrow’s opening race at the fifth round of the MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship.

The team were faced with changing conditions when track action got underway after midday as the track continued to dry and the times began to tumble in the final free practice session. Both Brookes and team-mate Broc Parkes headed into Datatag Qualifying ready to make further changes in their quest for a big points haul in the two races tomorrow.

Brookes had spent time at the top of the timesheets before he was later pushed back to third, but with 0.066s separating him from the pole position he is feeling confident of fighting to add to his podium tally tomorrow.

It was another tough session for Parkes, as he continued to get to grips with Knockhill he narrowly missed out on a position in Q2 and now will start 23rd on the grid.

Josh Brookes

“It was quite tough but I am quite pleased with the lap time, although I am never happy with third! We have been trying to put a good race pace together over the weekend, of course we want to be fastest, but for us we have been working on various things to make us faster over the race distance.

"We have been working on fuel maps to try and use less fuel to try and make the bike better at the beginning of the race and it has felt better. The last lap that I did in qualifying was actually my fastest lap so that was good. There are a lot of positives to take from that session although we are not on pole position. I feel that we are in a place where we can be confident going into the races.”    

Broc Parkes

“To be honest I was starting to feel better in the dry conditions and I felt that we could have found some more time with some extra laps, but the weather kind of messed that up. I just missed out on the top 20 by a tenth and that shows just how close it is here and that a small improvement can make the difference. I made some mistakes on my best laps and I felt pretty frustrated to not have been higher on the grid. I think the only plan I can have is to attack as much as I can in the races tomorrow.”