THE JOSH BROOKES AND GUINTOLI SHOW…
Josh Brookes is one rider who knows the drill when it comes to Suzuka; the Australian has been a podium finisher there before and this year he raced in the Yoshimura Suzuki team, alongside BSB rival and Suzuka veteran Sylvain Guintoli, who’d not raced at the track since his 250GP but was very much looking forward to scrapping it out in the prestigious event. The team had a fight on their hands though when Takuya Tsuda, the other rider in their team, crashed in the opening stint, dropping them down to 67th place. A gritty performance saw them work their way back up to seventh, and probably dreaming of what could have been had they had a little more luck.
Brooke’s battle...
“I can’t pretend I’m not disappointed about the accident at the start, but I do really feel for Takuya as he is an experienced rider and has raced here a lot of times. Every year I have raced with the team he has started the race because they like him to start and it’s just a shame. The bike didn’t start straight away so I think he was carrying that pressure of not being at the front, and then on top of that being in P10 is a bit of a juggling match for positions because everyone’s scrapping with you. At that point in the race he probably found himself in an awkward moment. You know, if any of us were in the same situation we might have made the same mistake so it’s hard to be harsh on him.
“I want to find the positives of the weekend and not just focus on the fact that it has been a negative one, as all three riders together have proven a great combination. We are all about the same speed so I feel we reached fairly the potential of the bike.
“I think Suzuki have been working on it a lot since the start of the year, so I think they have done a lot of work to be competitive, but we all know that a new bike does take time. Some small changes could have big effects once you have all the relevant information and obviously riding the bike for eight hours with three different riders is going to give them a lot more information than any testing we have done before we got here, so I think it puts them in a strong position for next year.”