Source: Supplied.

Australian hard-charger Josh Brookes enters the all-important Showdown stages of the 2015 British Superbike Championship with a two-point advantage ahead of Assen, Netherlands, this weekend.

Brookes arrives at the Dutch circuit leading the standings having won seven of the last nine races for the Milwaukee Yamaha team, but defending champion Shane Byrne fought back last time out at Oulton Park, claiming a pair of race wins to close back in.

Now with all roads directly leading to the championship, longtime BSB title threat Brookes will carry a calculated plan of attack into Assen in a bid to claim his first-career championship in the UK.

“I don’t feel any more pressure because it is the Showdown,” Brookes explained. “I want to win races no matter what point it is in the season and I have put Oulton Park behind me now. I didn’t get the results I wanted for various reasons and it was a bit of a mess up compared to where we had been before that weekend.

“I try to apply a method to my racing and I want to be logical and calculated so I am thinking positively for Assen. I did the recent round of IDM there and it might be a different bike and different technical rules, but there must be some knowledge that I can take from there too. This should be a strong circuit for the Yamaha and if everything comes together then we have high expectations for this weekend.”

Brookes was impressive in his one-off IDM Superbike appearance, riding a Team Yamaha MGM YZF-R1 to 3-4 finishes at Assen one month ago, gaining vital knowledge at the venue in the process.