Australian Josh Brookes has been forced out of this weekend’s Suzuka 8-Hour Endurance World Championship event due to injuries suffered in a controversial incident at last weekend’s Mallory Park British Superbike round.

Brookes suffered a thumb injury in the crash that took down six other riders and in which he received a two race ban, with the injury expected to put him out of action for up to four weeks.

It was originally intended that Brookes would compete on the Honda DREAM Sakurai bike alongside Japanese star Chojun Kameya, travelling to Japan for a successful round of testing two weeks ago.

Remaining Australians in the race are EWC series regulars Steve Martin and Damian Cudlin.