JOSH BROOKES
£ Brookes testing ahead
of his Milwaukee Yamaha
race debut
You burst onto the scene
winning a World Supersport
race at Philip Island as a wild
card. When a rider comes
in with a bang like that they
usually get picked up and
get a factory ride. The talent
was there but you never quite
got that opportunity. Given
what you mentioned on how
important the bike is to showing
your talent do you feel slightly
bitter that you never got a
world class bike in the World
Championship?
You have definitely hit a note
there with the word ‘bitter’. It’s
something I say regularly in
conversation, not to the media,
but in conversation with friends.
I feel very bitter about everything
in my career to date, because I
have got so much belief in myself,
it almost comes off as arrogance.
It’s not me being arrogant, it’s
just that I’ve felt feelings on
bikes, on race tracks and against
competition, that as a result of
things happening, made me
believe I can go further and do
better than I had been.
So bitter is the best way to
describe the fact that you haven’t
got to where you wanted to. You
believe in your head that you are
as good as…I mean I will put
myself right out there and I will
say I’m as good as the people
that run at the front of MotoGP.
In my opinion though, I’ve never
been given that true opportunity
to learn the craft and have a good
factory ride, and subsequently
get the result that I think I could
achieve.
It’s something that as riders we
understand, but if you said that
to the normal layperson they
would kind of look at you and
go “What, you think you are as
good as Marquez?”. But we as
riders know the levels of our
competition and the machinery
they are on.
And the truth is you do feel like
that, you do think you are as good
as every other rider out there
because at the end of the day it’s
just tarmac and corners! We are
on a set of wheels and the u
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