Brookes on pole

HM Plant Honda’s Josh Brookes has taken a superb pole position at Knockhill in Scotland ahead of round six of the ViSK British Superbike Championship, with a time of 48.759 secs.

He set his blistering pace right at the end of the final qualifying session, obliterating everyone else’s lap times and securing his first pole.

His team-mate Glen Richards fell heavily at the hairpin right at the start of the session. He is receiving treatment for a suspected broken right femur; Ian Lowry was also tangled up in the crash but walked away uninjured. Hydrex Honda’s Karl Harris fell during the last minute of the session but was unhurt.

Brookes said: “It feels good to be on pole. I never lost faith in myself and we’ve just been building back up to where we are now. It’s good to be back at the top, its good for the race and hopefully I can put on a show for the fans. There was a sequence of events to that lap. We made some steps forward this morning and then I decided to chuck it up the road and half destroy the bike which didn’t help with the fine tuning. We made some changes on the springs, the compression and rebound, just fine tuning to find a balance.

“In the final qualifying we had the best compromise so I went for it, built it up over a few laps. It was a pretty spectacular lap, the back was coming round, the front was tucking, but I knew it was a good lap. My team did a great job to get the bike built so thanks to them.” 

Qualifying result

1. Josh Brookes  48.759
2. Leon Camier  49.056
3. Stuart Easton  49.110
4. Michael Rutter  49.133
5. Karl Harris   49.183
6. James Ellison  49.348
7. Chris Walker  49.383
8. Graeme Gowland  49.490
9. Ian Lowry   50.404
10. Glen Richards  No time recorded