Josh Brookes maintained his impressive form in the MCE British Superbike Championship at Assen for the opening round of the Showdown, winning both races to extend his advantage to 28 points ahead of his closest rival in the standings.

In the opening race Brookes again delivered an impressive performance to fire off his pole position into the lead and then edged out ahead of the chasing pack to win by over six seconds, breaking the lap record in the process.

In the second race Brookes again emerged victorious. The changing conditions meant a challenge for the riders, but Brookes kept his cool, fighting throughout the race before dispensing with his rivals to maintain his winning Showdown streak.

Jakub Smrz finished sixteenth in his debut race for the Milwaukee Yamaha team as he continued to build momentum and the Czech rider improved his pace in race two to finish inside the top ten, moving up the order throughout the 15 lap contest.



Josh Brookes

"It is certainly pleasing to be in this position as if you turn back to the last race at Oulton Park, to watch Shakey overtake me and make a gap to finish the race ahead was a bitter pill to swallow. I have had two weeks to stew on that and to come back with maybe more aggression.

“It’s not just the double that’s good, I’ve done that a few times now, but to do it now at the most crucial point and with all the crazy things that have happened, especially last year there was a lot chaos for me that didn’t go my way.

“It’s really pleasing to have this lead over Shakey now; a lot of the racing I have done in the middle of the season had very little effect on the championship standings so for the points to matter this weekend makes a real difference.

“I took the holeshot in race two and immediately felt like I was going too slow, everything felt slow motion and I was waiting for people to come past. As Dan came past, I saw he was on wet weather tyres and he got away quite quickly as would be expected.

“We’ve seen it many times this year that the depth of field is strong in BSB, any rider that comes past you, you can’t just immediately get them back you have to work hard to do it.  I didn’t mean for the pass [on Ellison] to be that aggressive but I’m glad he’s taken it in good light. I thought I would be able to make a cleaner move than that but his entry speed was much faster than I anticipated!

“I’m really happy to bring it home with all these different events going on! I enjoyed the race quite a bit and I hope it was enjoyable to watch!”  
 
Jakub Smrz

"It was a difficult weekend because I hadn't ridden a race bike in three months, and it was a different bike and limited track time due to the weather conditions. But myself and the Milwaukee Yamaha team worked really hard and we scored a top 10 finish in race two.

"It was my first weekend with the R1 and I´m happy with the progress we have done and I really enjoyed working with Shaun Muir's team. They helped me a lot to adapt to the different riding style which the R1 needs and change the setup to make it easier so thanks to everyone.“