HUDDERSFIELD racer Tom Sykes came away almost unscathed from a crash in the second race at Portimao in the latest round of the World Superbikes Championship.

The 27-year-old, who went into the meeting in Portugal just four points behind championship leader Sylvain Guintoli, finished the first of the two races in third place behind the Aprilia racer who was in turn just beaten at the line by BMW rider Marco Melandri.

However, in race two Kawasaki Racing Team rider Sykes had a very early crash on the sighting lap, at turn two, but managed after several attempts to make his way back to the pits.

From there he started the race, but towards the end of the first lap Sykes had to pull in again.

After returning to the track for a third time, with no chances left for a top 15 finish, Sykes still showed incredible pace and even set the new lap record in 1.42.475.

With Guintoli collecting second place in the second race, as his Aprilia Racing teammate Eugene Laverty denied him the top step on the podium, the Frenchman retains the championship lead with 213 points ahead of Sykes in second on 185.

Sykes had gone into the races in confident mood having claimed his fifth consecutive Superpole and said: "I was really happy to have five Superpole wins on the bounce, it is a record for me."

Sykes had held the lead in the first race and had got his nose in front from a handful of laps from home before the end by nipping tidily under Melandri.

However, both Melandri and Guintoli picked off Sykes three laps from the line and the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R was losing ground all the way in the run to the flag.

Sykes said: "I expected the first race to be just as close as it was, and obviously the guys who finished first and second were riding really strongly, but I was struggling a little bit with race performance.

"But we made a good podium and scored good points.

"Portimao is not one of my strongest circuits and still we could fight for the win."

However that wasn’t to happen and Sykes explained: "In race two the fall was my fault because in turn one on my out lap I ran over the kerbstone on the inside.

"The piece of kerbstone looked quite flat but in the last moment I realised it was a big high kerb and it chucked me over the front of the bike.

"The bike flipped, landed on me and it was a big crash – it hurt my right leg and gave me a headache.

"We had made improvements on the bike for race two and we proved that was the case because we went on to break the lap record.

"I was just riding to the limits of the bike in each race.

"This is my worst circuit but in both races we raced to the limit of the package and it felt easier to do this record lap time in race two.

"I feel I have let a few people down, but I do not want to be too hard on myself as it is the first mistake I have made for a long time."