2015 British Superbike champion Josh Brookes ended the second race of his World Superbike wildcard appearance in Australia in a fine 12th despite almost missing the race due to a mechanical issue.
Brookes and his ERMotorsport-EliteRoads.com.au team brought to Phillip Island a modified version of the Yamaha YZF-R1 the Aussie rider won the BSB title with.
The idea behind the wildcard was to test his mettle on the world stage on a bike he is comfortable with, after a disastrous season in 2016 with Milwaukee BMW left him with unfinished business in WorldSBK.
In Saturday’s race, Brookes was running inside the points when a blown head gasket forced him to park up seven laps in. Unaware that this was the problem, the Aussie was in a race against time to get the bike ready for Sunday’s outing.
“Yesterday, we blew a head gasket and the excess pressure blew a water hose off but last night we thought it might have been a broken clamp,” he told Eurosport following race two.
“So we put it back together, went out in morning warm-up and the pressure built again, so that was evidence the head gasket was gone. We didn’t have a spare engine to go to.
“We had to make do with what we had, so we stripped the engine, took the head from the engine we broke in testing on Tuesday, used a second-hand gasket with three-bond on it, winged it with the torque settings and it was up and running with five minutes to go.”
Despite running a bike now down about 20km/h, Brookes was still able to get involved in a battle with Stefan Bradl on the brand new Honda, BMW’s Markus Reiterberger and Team Go Eleven Kawasaki’s Roman Ramos.
At the chequered flag, Brookes was 12th and just five second away from the top 10, prompting him to declare it ‘a beautiful result’.
Brookes will now head back to Europe to begin preparations for his BSB return this season with the Anvil TAG Hire Yamaha team. The Aussie will also make his Isle of Man TT comeback later in the year with British marque Norton.
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