Reigning world champion Tom Sykes turned his attentions to Misano and round seven of the World Superbikes Championship and put behind him the problems of the competition’s first outing in Malaysia.
The Huddersfield racer managed to collect enough points with a podium finish in race two at the Sepang International circuit to keep himself 13 clear of nearest rival Sylvain Guintoli, who had to play second fiddle to his Aprilia teammate Marco Melandri in Kuala Lumpur as the Italian notched a ‘double’ to lift himself to third in the rankings.
However, for 28-year-old Sykes the problems were closer to home after being knocked off on the second corner of the first lap in race one after a mistake by his Kawasaki Racing Team colleague Loris Baz.
However, Sykes was happy to put whatever misgivings he had about his teammate’s actions – the crash left him with an injured right hand – behind him ahead of the trip to Italy on June 22.
“In the end I had to be happy with the podium finish in race two,” said Sykes.
“I don’t want to say too much about race one. It was unfortunate as Loris proved a lot of people right, but at my expense.
“It was a shame because we felt that we had found something in Superpole and I felt really comfortable and thought we had a great chance to do well against the Aprilias.
“We knew that the Aprilias were fast, but be felt we could certainly have challenged them in race one.
“As it was, that wasn’t to be and in many ways race two was just about some damage limitation and to get something out of the meeting.”
Leading World Championship standings after Round 6: 1 Tom Sykes (GB) Kawasaki 201pts, 2 Sylvain Guintoli (Fra) Aprilia 188, 3 Jonathan Rea (GB) Honda 179, 4 Loris Baz (Fra) Kawasaki 170, 5 Marco Melandri (Ita) Aprilia 147, 6 Chaz Davies (GB) Ducati 130, 7 Davide Giugliano (Ita) Ducati 96, 8 Eugene Laverty (GB) Suzuki 90, 9 Toni Elias (Spa) Aprilia 89, 10 Leon Haslam (GB) Honda 89
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