Josh Brookes has only failed to finish on the MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship podium once so far this season with the next generation Milwaukee Yamaha YZF-R1 and arrives at Snetterton this weekend (19/20/21 June) hunting his first victory of 2015.

The Milwaukee Yamaha team took delivery of the new R1 over the winter and have been working hard behind the scenes with the development of the new machine over the opening three rounds of the campaign. Brookes and the Milwaukee Yamaha shattered the lap record at Snetterton and Brookes has high hopes for the fourth round of the season.

Here the Australian reflects on the progress the team has made so far and where their improvements have come from ahead of the next round of the season.

Brookes said:

The progress with the new bike has been good, there have been significant stages of change to start with there have been improvements with the electronics, like everyone is quite familiar in BSB, there are very limited things you can do with electronics but the way the bike enters the corner with the engine braking and the throttle maps help us. It is almost because we don't have many, the ones we have got are so important to get right, so improvements with corner entry and engine braking and the way that works has been improved a lot from the start - that's one big improvement.

"The engine has come in little stages, it's not the key changes that have happened but it is definitely helping, the standard engine we used at the start of the season and in testing, then we got an upgraded version and then we got another upgraded version recently. It has only been like two or five horse power, or whatever the stages have been, but it all leads to making it better and faster and us improving.

"Right up until the official test at Snetterton, we changed the fuel tank - that has changed the character of the bike and that is something that I really liked and I was able to go much better with that. Then throughout that process there have been smaller effects like suspension changes, week by week and track by track, and suspension is one of the most important areas to the bike but because it is changed so often and so regularly I don't want to make a big mention of that at the moment.

"There are then other things too like foot peg position to make me more comfortable, seat position, where I want the handlebars, grip on the tank - there are little areas that a bike that is three or four years old, these changes aren't that common as the bike would have gone through those processes in the early days.

"We have also had to revisit a some changes too; where we have made some changes and thought they weren't really for us and then made other changes so we have revisited the settings again to make sure - and actually sometime it has been like 'ah it actually feels good now'. Whereas before it didn't feel as good because of X or Y reason.

"If I was going to categorise things the most influential part we have changed for me is the fuel tank and then the second most significant change would be a series of changes with the electronics. The third would be engine upgrades and then fourth would be small changes for comfort."