Report - Josh Brookes

“After the first day of practice and qualifying I was doing OK, around two seconds off pole. That's still a lifetime, but we felt we had made a lot of progress since the test at Qatar the previous week.

"I was all set for final qualifying and hoped to make Superpole on the second day however I didn’t manage to improve due to a series of small things that conspired to bugger everything up. I did make Superpole for the first time ever, but Superpole is a crazy thing, and you’ve just got to nail it perfectly on every corner and you’ve only got one lap to do it in. I didn’t. So ended up starting from 15th! Next time will be better.

"Race one started with me coming out of turn 3 on the first lap stone motherless last because of a crash I had to avoid. I started to string some good laps together and put down some okay times and managed to make up some places but the rear tyre was spinning up real bad and I just had to ride around that.  Eventually it caught me out and I high-sided big time. I was that high I could see Saudi Arabia! Nice spot. I landed on my head pretty hard but everything was okay, nothing broken, except my helmet. Good things, those Arai’s. As Grandma always said to me, get an Arai or have a Sushi / Sashimi combo for brains!

"Race two was a lot better, although you wouldn’t know it from my start. The bike overheated on the starting line, I think because of an airlock in the radiator from the race one crash, it got to 125 degrees as the lights turned green. I was so focused on the temp gauge I forgot to start! At least I could actually see the starting lights, not like last year where I needed binoculars!

"When the bike’s that hot, you lose a lot of horsepower so I just gave it all I had, and hoped everything would be okay. I am pretty happy with a 13th place given what went on. I managed to equal my entire points score from last year in one race (doesn’t say much about last year huh?), and finished knowing more about the bike and feeling a little pumped about Phillip Island this coming week. The funny thing was I was just behind Bayliss for a while in the race. I was thinking, that’s weird. I must be going quicker this year! Seriously though, I am absolutely pumped for the island and hope to crack into the top ten.”

Josh spent the night on the Qatar airport floor as the flight to Australia was overbooked, but can report it was clean and relatively comfortable (compared to the tarmac at the track).