Aussie Josh Brookes was second quickest at Cartagena over the weekend in Spain.

Australia’s Josh Brookes has wrapped up his maiden British Superbike Championship test with Relentless Suzuki as the second fastest overall at Cartagena in Spain.

On the final day of testing at Cartagena, Tommy Hill and the Swan Yamaha team pushed on in the final sessions of the afternoon to set the fastest time of the test with a 1:32.914 lap time.

The lap put Hill, who switches from Suzuki for this year, ahead of current BSB number two Brookes and teammate Michael Laverty.

“What a good day. I have been doing some race simulations today with some longer stints on track and was comfortably running in the 33s region so I was happy with that,” Hill said. “I wanted to see if we could go faster so in our final session we put in a new tyre and did the 32s which is awesome way for us to end the test.”

Brookes spent the afternoon session switching between three bikes as he continued to get to grips with the Relentless Suzuki as he slashed some time of his personal best lap of the test so far.

“I rode this morning and we thought that we may have had a problem with the tyre as what we changed overnight didn’t seem to work in the way it should have,” Brookes explained. “We weren’t sure if it was a bad tyre or the setting.

“We knew it would be a risk to try it again as the sessions were so short but we thought the way the bike felt just wasn’t right. Then I went out on my second bike, as I have two here to test on, I know we don’t have two when we are racing but it helped.

“Then I had a go on teammate Guy Martin’s bike just to see the difference with the engine specification and for the second to last session we put a new tyre in and went back to my number one bike.

“It felt better straight away so at least we didn’t waste time and the changes that we had made felt good so we are just going to fine tune them before we go back to the UK for some further tests.”

Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne had an off track moment when he ran into the gravel on the HM Plant Honda early in the session, but in true gritty style was back out on the track and gunning for further improvement as the team prepare to complete the final day.

Defending champion Ryuichi Kiyonari also improved his pace in the penultimate session after working through a series of changes.

Earlier in the week, American Josh Hopkins made his BSB debut with Samsung Crescent Suzuki, posting a quickest lap of 1:34.0. At the point on the penultimate day of the test, Hill’s fastest lap was a 1:33.5.

2011 MCE British Superbike Championship
Test – Cartagena, Spain

Unofficial Overall Times:
1. Tommy Hill (Swan Yamaha) 1:32.914
2. Josh Brookes (Relentless Suzuki by TAS) 1:33.0
3. Michael Laverty (Swan Yamaha) 1:33.1
4. Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne (HM Plant Honda) 1:34.0
5. Ryuichi Kiyonari (HM Plant Honda) 1:35.6