The Milwaukee Yamaha team are looking to build on the opening day of the MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship Showdown at Assen after Tommy Bridewell and Josh Brookes ended the opening day in seventh and ninth respectively.

The weekend’s two free practice sessions saw both riders take to the track utilising the data from the recent test at the Dutch circuit, however both Brookes and Bridewell had a challenging opening day however both are confident of further improvement ahead of qualifying tomorrow.

Brookes said:

“It has been disappointing today and to be honest we have been a little bit surprised. At the test, apart from the lap Shakey did at the end of the day, we had a set-up that was able to do the consistently fastest times so we thought we would be in a good position. Coming back now the track conditions must be slightly different as we have come back with exactly the same motorbike and can’t match the times we did before.

“Looking at the positives, the bike is quite different from how I would normally ride it because to get the bike to go quickly at the test we had to change it to what I would usually use. At the test though it went fast so that’s what it needed. It now seems like it wants to be put back to how it normally is compared to what we had at the test. We are now looking at tomorrow, so we might go with what we think might be more practical and see where we go from there.”

Bridewell said:

“Today has been a difficult day for us as we just couldn’t get comfortable on the bike for some reason and it wasn’t working how I want it to. We have some work to do now to get to where we need to be for Sunday but we know we can do it. We will scratch out heads tonight and then try and come up with a solution for the next free practice session tomorrow so we are ready for qualifying.”

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