The Milwaukee Yamaha team were back on track at Brands Hatch today for the opening free practice sessions for the sixth round of the MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship with Josh Brookes holding third and Broc Parkes 16th.

The team-mates had been working through a variety of changes during the opening two sessions as they prepare to battle in Sunday’s two races. Brookes is chasing the first win of the season in Kent and was confident he can close the deficit, running 0.337s adrift of the pace-setting time.

Parkes made his return to the track following his arm pump surgery and set the 16th fastest time and is confident of further improvement tomorrow with the top 19 riders covered by 0.9s.

Brookes said:

“We have a new plan – F it its Friday, sensible Saturday and successful Sunday. We tried some quite different, I won’t say radical as nothing is radical in motorbike racing these days, but we pushed the boat out, and we have had some clear improvements with the bike in the second session. I lost some of my front end steering and feel that I normally have so we are conclusive with what we need to do to improve.

“We have to come up with something sensible for tomorrow as if we can get the steering that I am used to, and the knowledge we have now to stop the wheelie, we can put together a package for tomorrow it will work out. If I can get that feeling from the front end and the acceleration of the corners that I have achieved in FP2, we will probably be half a second better than my fastest time straight away and then we would be P1 at the moment.”

Parkes said:

“How I felt a couple of days ago with my arms, I’m pretty happy to be where I am. Times are not too far away but the times here are really close so in general this morning I’m still feeling a bit stiff and my arms are still a little fresh so I haven’t had the full movement yet and I felt better this afternoon. In general I think it’s not too bad but we’re a little bit down but not too far away so we’ll make some adjustments tomorrow and be as bit stronger and jump up a bit more.”