The Milwaukee Yamaha team are ready to come out fighting for podium finishes at the fifth round of the MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship at Brands Hatch tomorrow after Tommy Bridewell and Josh Brookes qualified in fifth and eighth place respectively.

The opening qualifying session for Brookes started strongly as he initially hit the top of the times; however he crashed out at Westfield after only one flying lap. The Milwaukee Yamaha returned to the garage and the team soon had the Australian back on track for the end of the session. Brookes claimed his place in Q3, although he suffered another high-speed crash at Sheene Curve whilst pushing for the pole position, which left him with the eighth fastest time. However Brookes is ready to battle in the two races on the Grand Prix circuit tomorrow.

On the opposite side of the garage Bridewell continued to build momentum throughout the weekend and after testing the different tyre options in the opening two qualifying sessions, he was ready to challenge in Q3. Bridewell’s fifth place qualifying result equals his best performance of the season.

Brookes said:

“Qualifying one started fine and I got a run in and then tried to improve and got on the gas too early and the back end let go and it low-sided and luckily didn’t do too much damage to the bike or to me. In qualifying three everything was back to normal and I forgot about the crash and just wanted to go faster, the first flying lap was ok and then on the second lap I could tell I was improving from my dash. I knew I was going better than all of my previous laps and I kept my head down to push as hard as I could and the next thing I knew the front end let go and I was down again.

“Unfortunately I didn’t have a better lap time before the crash so I have to start from the third row. The irony is I feel this weekend I had more emphasis on, in my mind, on a good qualifying position and be on the front row to try and then not have to try and make loads of passes. The irony is, that I crashed trying to achieve that and now I am on the third row and have to pass all the people so go fissure. That is the situation we are in for tomorrow and we just have to make the best of it. The boys can fix the bike and it will be fine for tomorrow, going fast you have to expect to crash now and again so I am not surprised but I am annoyed to crash. We just have to get back on it tomorrow and try again.”

Bridewell said:

“It was a good qualifying session for me. We have made minimal changes this weekend from what we had at Knockhill and the Milwaukee Yamaha has been working really well. We went out in Q1 and tested the SC0 and then in Q2 we tried the SC1 and we were a bit undecided so we didn't want to pull our brains out. We decided to think about race tactics so in Q3 we decided to use the SC1 and it worked brilliantly. The team have worked well and I feel fast and consistent, so we now just need a good clean start tomorrow and try to get away at the front. We've seen it has been close this weekend and nobody has run away with it so I think it will be two fighting races tomorrow.”

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