Brookes and Hill go faster at Cadwell

Josh Brookes went even faster on Wednesday afternoon in testing at Cadwell Park, than he had on Tuesday but admitted the times came harder.

The HM Plant Honda rider clocked a 1:27.87 and told MCN: “I don’t know what it was but the track didn’t seem to have the same grip at Tuesday. Or maybe it was just having spent all morning doing PR stuff. Whatever it was, it was only later in the afternoon when I really got going.”   

Yesterday’s final afternoon of testing took place after the mornings MSVR Cadwell media launch. HM Plant Honda, Worx Suzuki and Swan Honda did the PR work but Swan Honda then packed up and headed back to the workshop, content with their set-up. That left just Brookes, Ryuichi Kiyonari and Tommy Hill on track.

Stuart Easton, injured in the previous day’s test was back at the track by lunchtime and was in good spirits, despite hobbling around after overnight surgery to repair the deep gash in the back of his leg.

“The hospital didn’t give me any crutches. They said the best thing to get it healing faster would be to weight-bear. I’ll be at Brands.”

Kiyonari was again off the pace but said that in the last couple of runs was finally starting to get his head about how to get a good feel for the bike on the very narrow and undulating Cadwell track.

Hill was the only Worx rider testing. Yukio Kagayama arrives back in Britain from Japan today (Thursday).  After being plagued by electronic gremlins, the team finally got the bike sorted yesterday and Hill was flying with a best time of 1:27.96. “The times were coming to me,” he said. “I wasn’t really pushing at all so that fills me with confidence.”