After a frustrating qualifying session on Sunday, Josh Brookes kept his cool in today's treacherous conditions at the Thruxton British Superbike Championship round, closing the gap on the BSB top six with two solid points-scoring finishes with ninth in race one and sixth in race two on his Relentless Suzuki by TAS Racing GSX-R1000.

Josh Brookes:

"Obviously starting from 14th was not the ideal preparation for today's races. But we did make it up to ninth in race one with the seventh fastest lap and took sixth in race two with the fifth fastest lap, so we are improving. I've now got to go away and look to see where we are losing out, as this time last year I was winning races. We'll keep circulating and remain positive, and as long as we are in the top six by the end of round nine - then the job's a dream. I'll take a break now and head over to the TT for a few days."

Philip Neill - Team Manager:

"It was a very difficult day for everyone and what really hurt Josh was his lowly qualifying position and maybe being a little bit tentative in the early laps. His lap times were comparable to the fast men but you just can't do it from that far back. On a positive note we have closed the gap on the top six to 20 points. There's certainly nothing wrong with the bike or the rider; it's just taken a little longer getting Josh used to the GSX-R1000 and those two big crashes at the start of the year lost us some momentum.


Race 1 Results:
1 Michael Laverty (Yamaha); 2 Michael Rutter (Ducati) +1.281s; 3 Shane Byrne (Honda) +1.333s; 4 John Hopkins (Suzuki) +1.923s; 5 Peter Hickman (Honda) +2.473s; 6 Dan Linfoot (Honda) +3.097s; 7 Alex Lowes (Kawasaki) +8.863s; 8 Chris Walker (Kawasaki) +10.948s; 9 Josh Brookes (Relentless Suzuki by TAS) +14.718s; 10 Ryuichi Kiyonari [Honda) +17.132s.

Race 2 Results:
1 Shane Byrne (Honda); 2 Peter Hickman (Honda) +10.618s; 3 John Hopkins (Suzuki) +15.527s; 4 Tommy Hill (Yamaha) +16.980s; 5 Dan Linfoot (Honda) +17.128s; 6 Josh Brookes (Relentless Suzuki by TAS) +17.983s; 7 Michael Laverty (Yamaha) +22.967s; 8 Chris Walker (Kawasaki) +26.881s; 9 Jon Kirkham (Suzuki) +32.415s; 10 Martin Jessopp (Ducati) +34.864s.


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