Josh Brookes claimed a double podium finish for the Milwaukee Yamaha team at the third round of the MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship, moving to within 15 points of the standings lead.

In the opening race Brookes was fighting for the win but had to settle for second place, just 0.160s adrift at the finish line. It was a disappointing opening race for Broc Parkes who was collected by another rider at the Hizzys Chicane, leaving him crashing out of contention.

In race two Brookes was again challenging in the leading pack for the podium finish with the podium line-up going down to the wire. Brookes was pushing the pair ahead of him and claimed his fifth top three finish from six races in third place. Parkes meanwhile had to try and battle through the order, feeling sore after his race one crash, to end in 22nd place.
 
Josh Brookes - R1: 2nd, R2: 3rd

“In the first race I bodged up the lights a bit at the start of the race. I don’t know why, but everything seemed to go into slow motion. I saw them go out, but I just didn’t go, it just didn’t happen and I had three riders around me. I just floated into the first corner and took an ideal line and it gave me the lead which was really lucky. I got away with it I guess!

“I was trying to force Tommy [Bridewell] to make a mistake but then I started to lose a bit of grip so I had to change my plan. I was trying to maintain the lap time and there wasn’t an opportunity to take an advantage.

“I was pleased to get third in race two; in general I made a few mistakes at the start and I thought I was going good but everyone was riding so well. Everyone at the front doesn’t normally make mistakes and if we do it is a crash, so I sat there at the back waiting to make a mistake or force a pass but it never showed. With Kiyo and Shakey going down it gifted me the third position and I will take it, it is too hard to get results in this championship so I am pleased with third.”  



Broc Parkes - R1: Crash, R2: 22nd

"It’s not been a great day for me today. I got a good start to the first race but then got t-boned by another rider into Hizzys. He just hit me and then the bike was badly damaged which meant the boys had to fix it all up but then we had a few problems in the second race, but we need to check the data.  As for me, my body has taken two beatings this weekend and both times I have been up in the air and landing on my shoulder and back. I felt sore in race two but I did my best - it has just been a disaster of a weekend. I want to look forward now to the test at Snetterton."
 
Team manager Mick Shanley 

“It’s been quite a positive weekend for Josh and for the project as a whole. We are happy with the way things have gone over the first three rounds. We now have five weeks before the next round to understand where we are and where we want to be and there will be a lot of work done before the Snetterton test and the races at Snetterton.

"Broc had various issues and it was a tough weekend for him. He was taken out in the first race and that caused issues for the second race. We need to go back to basics and find out how we can help him.”