Brookes leads at Brands Hatch ahead of BSB finale

Full BSB FP2 results at Brands Hatch

Josh Brookes has topped Friday practice in mixed conditions at Brands Hatch with Bennetts British Superbike championship leader Scott Redding keeping within touching distance in fourth place.

The 2015 BSB champion needs to overhaul a 28-point gap to Redding at the three-race finale and has duly started strongly at the Kent track by going fastest on Friday.

Rain showers swirled around Brands Hatch throughout Friday’s running, with Christian Iddon initially leading the times on a damp but drying circuit at the start of FP2.

A five-minute red flag was triggered to allow BSB trackside marshals to recover bikes after Sam Coventry and Ryan Vickers both crashed in quick succession unhurt at Clearways.

With 20 minutes remaining the best of the conditions presented themselves to the BSB riders which saw Be Wiser Ducati’s Brookes jump up to the top of times narrowly ahead of Buchan.

Rain then returned with five minutes to go in FP2 to curtail the rest of the running before this weekend’s triple-header.

With Brookes topping Friday practice with a 1m 28.873s he edged out FS-3 Racing Kawasaki’s Buchan by just 0.038s but was almost four-tenths of a second clear of Iddon on the Tyco BMW.

Redding had to settle for fourth place on the FP2 timesheet for Be Wiser Ducati before the rain returned late on, with James Ellison impressing for OMG Racing Suzuki in fifth place.

Peter Hickman claimed sixth place for Smiths Racing BMW ahead of final BSB title contender Tommy Bridewell who ended FP2 in seventh place for Oxford Racing Ducati.