Brookes sets fastest ever Superbike lap of Silverstone to claim pole as arch rival Shakey starts tenth

Courtesy of MCE British Superbike Championship

Bullish Brookes sets fastest ever Superbike lap of Silverstone to claim pole as arch rival Shakey starts tenth Results Datatag Qualifying: 1: Josh Brookes (Milwaukee Yamaha) 2m:03.984s 2: John Hopkins (Lloyds British Moto Rapido Ducati) +0.297s 3: Christian Iddon (Bennetts Suzuki) +0.546s 4: James Ellison (JG Speedfit Kawasaki) +0.548s 5: Luke Mossey (Quattro Plant Kawasaki) +0.751s 6: Jakub Smrz (Milwaukee Yamaha) +0.855s Report Josh Brookes claimed pole position by annihilating the existing lap record to set the fastest ever Superbike lap of Silverstone during Datatag Qualifying ahead of tomorrow’s MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship races. The championship leader had the edge on all of his Title Fighter rivals, upping the pace in each of the three stages before dipping into the 2m:03s window to smash his previous best time, but John Hopkins was only 0.297s adrift for the Lloyds British Moto Rapido Ducati team. Hopkins had fired in his lap in the closing stages of the session to close the deficit whilst Christian Iddon delivered his best qualifying performance of the season to score Bennetts Suzuki their first front row start of the season as the Showdown spoilers mixed up the Title Fighters. James Ellison heads the second row on the leading Kawasaki; the JG Speedfit Kawasaki rider held off Luke Mossey and the second Milwaukee Yamaha of Jakub Smrz to claim fourth position on the timesheets. Peter Hickman forced his way into the final stage of qualifying and he held seventh place to be the top BMW contender for the RAF Reserves squad ahead of Michael Laverty on the Tyco BMW. Dan Linfoot held eighth for Honda Racing to make it all six manufacturers inside the top ten. It was a nightmare session though for defending champion Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne he will start tenth on the grid for tomorrow’s opening race, but the PBM Kawasaki rider is confident that the team will have resolved the issue ahead of the two crucial races. For more information visit http://www.britishsuperbike.com Josh Brookes (Milwaukee Yamaha) Championship leader: 553 points Datatag qualifying position: Pole position “I kind of changed my character a bit during qualifying as normally I will do two, three or four laps and ride to the chequered flag, but in Q2 I did a really nice lap and I felt there wasn’t a lot more I could achieve and I thought that it would be enough to get into the final qualifying. I wanted to leave that good thought in my head going into the last run. “When I went out in Q3, on our dash when you do a personal best lap a light comes on and when you drop below your personal best the light goes out, and my first flying lap I went into the first turn and I made  a mistake and I rolled the throttle and immediately the light went out on the dash and I was devastated. But I kept the gas and the light came back on so whatever I lost I made back and that meant game on again and I kept everything as good as I could and raced right to the finish. “I saw ‘03.9 on the dash and I thought to myself could I go for another lap? Which was my normal strategy, and I thought if someone could beat that lap then they deserve it because I laid everything fairly well on the line on that lap. I didn’t really believe I could make a better lap without another fresh pair of tyres so I just pulled off and rode it into the pits. “The team have done a really good job with the bike to give me that confidence and I looked at my pit board and saw a 0.2 and I thought who the hell is that close to me, as I was expecting to see a bigger gap, and it was Hopper. He was the previous track record holder – and it shows he’s feeling good on his bike. “I am still focusing on my own situation and just working on your bike and tyre conservation. I am trying to maintain that same focus – if you do the same thing you should be able to achieve the same results.” Shane Byrne (PBM Kawasaki) Second in the standings: 551 Datatag Qualifying position: 10th “Today actually, despite ending in a really negative way, was a really good day for us at PBM Kawasaki. It has been a tough weekend so far and they always seem to be just lately, but the team has dug deep today. We tried something this morning and then into qualifying Q1 we made another improvement and then for Q2 we made a big step and the lap time was really, really good and I was really happy with the lap time. I did that lap on the back of the Buildbase BMW guys and I actually caught them a bit faster than I had anticipated and perhaps just lost a tiny bit of time because of it. “We then made another small change to the bike for Q3 in the same direction that we had gone in from Q1 to Q2 so I was feeling really confident of another little step in lap time, but immediately the first couple of corners I knew we had a problem. Whilst I dug deep and gave it absolutely everything, a problem not with the bike but with a component on it, gave us no grip and a load of chatter so it was a really, really frustrating way to end the day but I think we can take a lot of positives from today. “OK we start tenth on the grid for tomorrow which is a bit pants, but a fast lap in race one will give us a better grid position for race two and there are plenty of places to make passes here so I am far from downbeat and I am much happier now we can see what the problem was. I felt bad for the team as I had a good Q2 and then we went all out for Q3 and had an absolute disaster and when I came in and said what it was doing, they were like ‘really’ but it turns out it was right. We will try something again in warm up in the morning and then fingers crossed for two strong races.”