Josh Brookes made an auspicious start to life as a Be Wiser Ducati rider by topping the timesheets in first free practice for the opening round of the 2019 Bennetts British Superbike Championship at Silverstone.
Beginning his tenth season in BSB, Brookes is making his first appearance in Be Wiser colours at the Northamptonshire venue, joining MotoGP convert Scott Redding in giving the much-vaunted new Ducati V4 its British race debut this weekend.
Having already shown strongly on the bike in pre-season testing, Brookes was quick out of the box in FP1 again with a last gasp 54.196secs earning him the top time, just ahead of the impressive Josh Elliot, the OMG Suzuki rider a mere 0.013s from the summit.
Debuting on the McAMS Yamaha this weekend, Jason O’Halloran was third quickest from Luke Stapleford on the first of the Buildbase Suzuki’s and top Tyco BMW rider Christian Iddon.
Likely to garner much attention this weekend on the second of the Be Wiser Ducati, Redding showed well by topping the timesheets for much of the session before a flurry of quick laps towards its conclusion shuffled him down to sixth position.
OMG Racing’s Luke Mossey made it three Suzuki’s in the upper echelons in seventh, ahead of Dan Linfoot and the factory Hondas of ex-WSBK rider Xavi Fores and Andrew Irwin.
