Huddersfield racer Tom Sykes opened up an eight points lead at the top of the leaderboard in the World Superbikes Championship with two podium finishes at Istanbul Park.

The 28-year-old Kawasaki Racing Team rider took third place in race one and improved with a second in race two – both seeing him crucially ahead of his nearest challenger, Aprilia rider Sylvain Guintoli.

Sykes started from pole – his seventh Superpole of the season – in Turkey and took his KRT Ninja ZX-10R total of podium finishes to 13 for the campaign.

Sykes led both races and battled hard to try and win each one, but he was 3.432 seconds behind the winner in race one and only 1.708 seconds off the pace on the second outing – trailing double race winner, Aprilia’s Eugene Laverty.

“Two podiums was great as it was the first time for me on this track,” said Sykes.

“We had only two-and-a-half hours track time against two top riders who have previous experience of this circuit.

“We made two or three changes to the bike between races and I think everybody saw that our bike was working a bit better in the second one.

“We started that race quite strongly and I was able to lead again but some of our competitors were using the tyres a little bit better, so Eugene (Laverty) was able to catch me.

“Unfortunately I did not have the package at the end of the second race to fight back and try to win.

“I believe that we can learn and improve, but we are leaving with an improved points lead and that can only be a good thing.”