“No new experiences” for Josh Brookes in DAO Racing Honda BSB switch

Two-time BSB Champion Josh Brookes says his switch to the DAO Racing Honda team for the 2025 British Superbike Championship has been “what I expected in some ways,” but says there are still areas he needs to improve.

42-year-old Brookes, who was last BSB Champion on the PBM Ducati in 2020, switched to DAO Racing – which ran Kawasaki ZX-10RRs until the end of last season – from FHO BMW for the upcoming BSB season, and says that his experience – having been racing BSB since 2009 with the exception of one World Superbike season in 2016 – in the British Championship has helped him to adapt to his new environment.

“No new experiences for me, being in it for as long as I have,” Brookes told Crash.net after the Oulton Park test.

“I’ve ridden for many different teams and bikes, so it’s all emotions and experiences that I’ve been through in times before.

“So, it’s what I expected in some ways: I’ve got on perfectly with the team, a lot of the members I already knew from other experiences before, so that made that a lot easier; the Honda is in general quite a versatile bike, it’s not very particular like some other brands can be at times, so that’s been quite good.”

The Australian was clear, though, that there is work to do to improve his situation.

“I suppose we need to focus on the critical element, and that’s the lap time,” he said.

“We’ve not at any point been really far away, but it’s also very obvious that we need to find better improvements.

“I feel like we’re learning loads about the bike, even in the last 15 minutes of the last session [there was] kind of a ‘light bulb’ moment. It’s not like we’re learning new things that we haven’t experienced or learnt before, it’s just how the pieces go together right now: what combination of settings will deliver the results that we search for at the moment?

“I feel like we’re still a little way away.

“I’m a realistic person, I feel like we definitely can’t hide that we need some improvements to be competitive, but I still feel quite optimistic at this point that we’ve got the chance to improve because there’s lots of areas with the bike where I feel like ‘If that was a bit better, and that was a bit better, we’d make some progress’.”

Brookes explained that it is a case for him of putting all of the pieces together at the same time, but also highlighted tyre life as a point of concern.

“We have had the bike working good in individual areas, but just not the whole package all at once to do fast laps,” he said.

“The thing that actually is of more concern at the moment is actually the tyre life; I feel like maybe we’re on the weaker side [from] what I could tell.

“It’s difficult, because it’s a test, to know what everyone else is doing and where they sit, but my instinct is that we need to work on tyre life a little bit as well, so that’s probably where our focus will be when we come back [to Oulton Park] for the race.

“I think if we have a little bit more temperature on the track, it won’t be a problem; but if we have cooler temperatures, as we’ve had in the morning sessions these last two days, it will possibly be a problem for the race distance.

“So, I feel that’s an area that we need to focus on, but we’re not in a position to panic yet, it’s a long season.”

In terms of his feeling on the bike, Brookes was clear about where the improvements needed to come.

“It’s corner entry, engine brake area, so the settings we have for engine brake I think can definitely be revised,” he said.

“But also, I think the way the bike transfers on corner entry.

“It could be a combination of two factors.

“I think the bike, the way the rear tyre stays in contact with the ground, isn’t just as good as some of our rivals – whether it be other riders on Hondas or other machines, I feel like that’s an area where we still have potential to grow.

“It’s just keeping that rear tyre on the ground and getting the bike to stop on corner entry.

“We have reason to believe that we’re quite good in top speed, in acceleration off the turn, but that area of straight line braking and going into the turn is the area that’s been highlighted for me to improve.”

He added: “If we sort of generalise how the bike is working, most of the other areas we’re either the same or somewhere near. The area that stands out as a proper weakness is corner entry.

“It’s not like we don’t have the good equipment to brake, the materials for braking are okay, it’s the function of the bike, the package, how well it’s keeping that rear tyre on the ground and pulling up.”