Thruxton BSB: Brookes ‘baffled’ by race two crash

Anvil Hire TAG Yamaha’s Josh Brookes looked on course to take the MCE British Superbike double win at Thruxton today until he crashed in the closing stages and couldn’t capitalise on series leader Shane Byrne’s retirement.

The 2015 BSB champion is ‘baffled’ by the incident and still doesn’t know why he tumbled off at Cobb. Brookes won his team’s first ever British Superbike race, and nearly had a perfect last race at the Hampshire circuit.

In both races he conserved the tyres really well and decided to ride his R1 with the softer option Pirelli tyre compounds, and was up the sharp end, challenging for the victories.

Thruxton has historically been a successful track for the Australian. This was the circuit that Brookes secured his debut BSB win, and today he came away from the round with his sixth victory in Hampshire.

The R1 rider does not want to dwell on what happened during race two, and is firmly setting his sights on doing well at Cadwell Park. The Yamaha man is still in showdown contention and is only seven points behind JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s Luke Mossey in the standings.

“I’m full of contrasting emotions really, I had great race one and a perfect race two until the crash, I don’t understand it, I can’t tell you why I fell off,” said Brookes, at the track.

“I had a gap big enough not to be under pressure and I had a gap small enough not to be complacent, and I still come unstuck. If I had made a clear error and the judgement of error was my own I’d say immediately I’d made a mistake, like I did at Brands, I’m baffled.

“The team worked superbly all weekend, the bike was good enough to win both races, we almost got pole position and it could have been a great weekend, but I just need to build a bridge and get over it.

“I need to put it behind me, the team do too and we’ve shown what we’re capable of, we can’t dwell on the past. We move onto Cadwell now, it’s a great event, and it’s been a great event for me in the past so hopefully we’ll carry on the good form there.”

After race one Brookes added: “Thruxton has had a great history for me I have had a lot of good results here. That race was tricky because of the obvious safety car changed the strategy. It was a sort of chess game to know when to keep the tyre warm and to know what to do.

“I think I played it about right and I didn’t lose too much after the pace car went in. I tried as hard as I could and Hickman was setting a real strong pace at the front and I wasn’t able to kind of do much more than I was doing. I then sort of found my rhythm and that changed the race for me and I am pleased for the Anvil Hire Team and to be able to repay them. “