25 February 2016

Phillip Island, Friday February 26th

Free Practice report – 2016 World Superbikes Australian Round

Josh Brookes:

FP1 – 1’33.354 20 laps

FP2 – 1’32.704 23 laps

“Today has been quite frustrating, because we’re doing the same lap time as I did on Monday in testing, but we’ve got some big changes to make so that the bike feels more natural to me. Every time I go out we’re gathering more ideas and data on understanding the bike.

At the moment that’s all we can do, and we need to use that to make some forward progress. It’s easy to get down and annoyed about this situation, but that’s just how bikes are sometimes, and they don’t always react how you want them to.

Everyone in the garage is really smart and there’s a lot of experience, so we just need to rely on what we know and we can start making some positive steps in a logical direction.”

Karel Abraham: FP1 – 1’34.277 12 laps

FP2 – 1’33.491 24 laps

“We only got a few laps done at the start of FP1 as I had some problems with the set-up. Unfortunately the guys were working on it for most of the session, so we only got a few laps in at the end where I tried a different system, but I still struggled a little.

In FP2 I was getting better every lap, but I ran wide a couple of times when I was pushing hard. We found some small problems with the suspension, but we can work on them and improve.

It’s a little bit frustrating because winter testing was so cold and here is so hot, which has made setting up the bike difficult. But I still think we can get into the pace soon, and we will do our best to improve as much as we can for tomorrow’s qualifying and race.”

Mick Shanley, Team Coordinator:

“We had a few problems in the morning for both sides of the garage, so we lost some track time for Josh and Karel. In the afternoon we managed to identify the issues, but we’re not as far forward with both bikes as I’d like to be.

Coming off the back of a difficult test here we've still got a lot of work to do to be competitive, but we are working very hard to solve the issues as quickly as possible.

It’s only our first day in World Superbikes though, so hopefully we can make the changes we need now for tomorrow and get ready for Superpole.”

Updates on the team can be found at the Milwaukee BMW website: www.milwaukeebmw.co.uk; the Facebook page Milwaukee BMW, and on Twitter @MilwaukeeBMWWSB