Josh Brookes reflects on start of 2017 BSB campaign
Friday practice went quite well, P3 in both sessions was enough for the team and I to feel satisfied on the first day. Saturday was not so good. We had much to try, but FP3 was very cold and wet. The positive was we were fastest until the final seconds of the session, only put back to second by a very small margin.
Qualifying 1 is quite a long session, so it’s often possible to try a few last minute settings, and when your one of the top time setters, even Q2 can be a chance for some extra fine tuning. Sadly the day was cancelled when a rider died from his crash in the Ducati Cup class. Grid positions were decided from practice times.
Morning warm up we tested the bike with the updated dry settings but the track temp was to low to get true indication if the setting was an improvement or not.
We left it as it was for race one, I got a good start from p3 on the front row but was barged wide by Luke Mossy at turn four and then again a few corners later by Glenn Irwin. I had lost a lot of places, pushed back to 9th I believe.
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I worked forward up to 5th but with six laps to go I was struggling with bad tyre wear on the rear and expected to hold my position to the finish. On the final three turns to the finish the bike was surging for fuel, and I lost 2 places and finished 7th. There was still 2.5 litres left but the modified tank design was not letting it use all the fuel efficiently.
In the break a modification was made to the tank plus some suspension and engine brake adjustments. I set the fastest time in race one so in BSB that meant I start race 2 from pole.
I got a good start and had the lead into turn one. I held the lead until about four laps to go, when Haslam passed and put a few bike lengths on me. I had over four seconds on the 3rd place rider so I was safe to bring it home in 2nd.
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In 2015 the SC0 was the only tyre to use as the SC1 option was to slow. Now in 2017 the SC1 is a much improved tyre, but as I didn’t have the dry track time to test it I just stuck with what I know and raced on the SC0. Haslam, using the SC1, was able to keep the lap times at the end when my tyre was dropping off. At the next round testing the New version SC1 will be at the top of the list.
All the team are pleased with our first round performance, and have more confidence knowing there are areas we can easily improve.
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British Superbike Championship 2017 – Round One – Superbike Championship Standings
- LEON HASLAM JG SPEEDFIT KAWASAKI 50
- LUKE MOSSEY JG SPEEDFIT KAWASAKI 31
- JOSH BROOKES ANVIL HIRE TAG YAMAHA 29
- CHRISTIAN IDDON TYCO BMW 29
- GLENN IRWIN BE WISER DUCATI 26
- PETER HICKMAN SMITHS RACING BMW 21
- JAMES ELLISON MCAMS YAMAHA 21
- JASON O’HALLORAN HONDA RACING 12
- DAVIDE GIUGLIANO TYCO BMW 10
- DAN LINFOOT HONDA RACING 9
