Brookes does the double and opens commanding title lead

Race two at Assen saw Josh Brookes make a huge step towards his first MCE Insurance British Superbike championship. The Australian was a double winner at the Dutch track today and has opened a 28 point lead over Shane Byrne after the PBM rider finished fifth the second race of the day.

The race started on a drying track and while almost the entire field started on slicks Dan Linfoot took a gamble on wets and led in the early stages before falling down the order.

“I could have a been a hero!,” was how Linfoot summed up his risky strategy. “Everyone will say what were you doing? It rained, it stopped, it rained, it stopped, it was quite wet to begin with and I thought I will go with it, we are in Showdown. I lost some points this morning, I thought I will gain them all back if this pays off – it could have been a much different story! Obviously I am disappointed as two points from the round is not good.”

 Brookes then took the lead but had a huge moment and fell into the pack with Luke Mossey and Ellison leading the way. With Brookes on a charge the Yamaha rider took the lead with three laps to go.

Brookes held off James Ellison for the win and afterwards Brookes said, ““It’s not just the double that’s good, I’ve done that a few times now, but to do it now at the most crucial point and with all the crazy things that have happened, especially last year there was a lot chaos for me that didn’t go my way.

“I took the holeshot in race two and immediately felt like I was going too slow, everything felt slow motion and I was waiting for people to come past. As Dan came past, I saw he was on wet weather tyres and he got away quite quickly as would be expected.”