Untouchable Brookes doubles up at Oulton Park

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Josh Brookes completed a dominant double victory in round two of the 2019 Bennetts British Superbike Championship as he reeled off another lights-to-flag triumph at Oulton Park.

After his double DNF in round one, Brookes enjoyed a complete reversal of fortunes in round two by clinching a second win of the day having led every lap of both encounters.

Coming on a weekend where the new Ducati Panigale V4 R proved the class of the field, particularly in race conditions, Brookes was yet again in commanding form by snatching the lead from the lights over pole sitter Tommy Bridewell and instantly ramping up the pace.

Having run the Aussie close to the flag in race one, Oxford Racing’s Bridewell initially kept up the pace with his Ducati counterpart, but couldn’t sustain his challenge to the finish with Brookes completing his 38thcareer BSB win and a first brace of successes with the Paul Bird Motorsport-run team.

Despite missing out on victory, a second podium of the day lifts Bridewell to joint top of the overall leaderboard with Tarran Mackenzie on a standout day for the Moto Rapido-run customer outfit.

Danny Buchan made it an identical podium as he picked up a third rostrum in a row for the single-entry FS-3 Racing Kawasaki team, ahead of ex-MotoGP man Scott Redding, who put in some fine passes en route to fourth position on the second of the Be Wiser machines.

Though a far cry from his grandstand performance at Silverstone, Mackenzie enjoyed a positive end to the weekend with a charging ride from eighth to fifth position, the Scotsman getting the better of Christian Iddon, while Jason O’Halloran on the sister McAMS Yamaha pulled a similar trick on Tyco’s Keith Farmer to snatch seventh at the line.

Andrew Irwin picked up a ninth place finish on a day to forget for the Honda Racing squad, ahead of Ryan Vickers and Peter Hickman, the latter scything to 11thfrom the back of the grid after encountering a tyre pressure issue on pre-grid.

Bradley Ray led the GSX-R1000 challenge on a disappointing day for the Suzuki contingent, ahead of Dan Linfoot and OMG Racing pair of Luke Mossey and erstwhile series leader Josh Elliott.

With both races completed with barely any incident beyond technical issues, Dean Harrison and Glenn Irwin finished down in 18thand 22ndafter a tangle, while Shaun Winfield was the day’s only faller on the Santander Salt TAG Yamaha.