Suzuka Eight-Hours - Brookes bags debut podium

MCE British Superbike title contender Josh Brookes has bagged his first Suzuka Eight-Hours podium this afternoon as his Yoshimura Suzuki team captured second place at the prestigious race.

The Tyco Suzuki rider was drafted in to the works team to partner Nobuatsu Aoki and Takuya Tsuda. They began the race in second on the grid and were never outside the top five over eight hours of racing in 35°C temperatures.

"It feels awesome to have done this, it's a great achievement for all the Yoshimura Suzuki team. It's a hard, tough race because the concentration levels have to remain high and the heat sometimes gets to you as it is pretty hot here in the afternoon," said Brookes, speaking to bikesportnews.com after the race.

"I had a bit of an off in the same place as Kiyonari (Degner Two) but I held on to the bike into the gravel to stop it flipping over. I hurt my arm a bit, but got back on and did the next 12 laps without a screen.

"We couldn't replace it, so we had a little less downforce on the front, but Takuya and I just modified the way we rode a little and brought it home in second. I did four stints and he did three, and I managed to keep the laps in the 2'09s which was the target." 

By David Miller

Image by Noriyuki Nakajima