On the evidence of the opening round of the World Superbike Championship, Tom Sykes is going to face a long hard battle to win back his title.
The Huddersfield racer will probably be happy enough with his points return from Phillip Island.
The Australian track has never been one of his favourites – last season there was a tumble in practice and this year a fall in testing – and a combination of patience and caution was sufficient to take 23 points from a sixth place in race one and fourth in race two.
It leaves the 29-year-old Kawasaki Racing Team rider in fourth place in the initial rankings and he will be looking to his favoured European tracks at Donington Park, Imola, Magny-Cours, Jerez and Motorland Aragon to start making his push to win back the crown he won in 2013.
However, this season looks set to evolve in very different way to the three campaigns that have preceded it – and it is an evolution rather than a revolution.
The last three years – the seasons where Sykes has been in the running – have seen the title come down to essentially two riders battling it out for the big prize at the last meeting of the season.
In 2012 Sykes went to Magny-Cours chasing down the Italian legend Max Biaggi and in the end missed out by just half a point, in 2013 he took the crown in Jerez in relative comfort by 23 points from Aprilia Sylvain Guintoli, but then last year arrived at the final meeting in Doha leading but was ultimately six points off the pace as the Frenchman took his revenge.
However, any thoughts that Market Bosworth-based Guintoli, now riding for Pata Honda, and Leamington-based Sykes expect to have a third battle two-way of the Midlands have been banished by the emergence of a trio of British contenders in Australia.
The podium places in both races at Phillip Island were taken by Northern Ireland’s Jonathan Rea, London-born Leon Haslam and Welshman Chaz Davies.
While it terms of headlines it would be great to laud this as some kind of takeover by a new British generation, but the truth is that these guys have paid their dues and have been knocking on the door rather than suddenly bursting through it – and for recent champions Sykes and Guintoli that is probably a more sobering scenario.
Larne’s Rea was third in last season’s championship on the Pata Honda and he certainly seems to have taken to sharing the Kawasaki Racing Team garage with Sykes as comfortably as a duck takes to water.
A win and a second place in Australia will have sent his confidence flying through the roof, and in a different way the same applies to Ealing-born Haslam.
Haslam has been chasing this crown since 2003 and indeed on an Alstare Suzuki in 2010 was second to Biaggi, though by a gaping 75 point gap, and he will be hoping that on his new Racing Team Red Devils Aprilia that the frustration and hurt – injuries being a big factor in his career – can be put behind him with success this season.
This year Davies, who took third place twice down under, is riding for Aruba.it Racing-Ducati World Superbike Team and in his third season in World Superbikes – finishing ninth, fifth and sixth over those seasons – and looking to add to the Supersport World Championship title he won on the Yamaha ParkinGO Team in 2010.
But none of that trio can claim to be on a learning curve, as both Rea and Davies are just a year younger than Sykes at 28 and Haslam is two years older than his Huddersfield rival at 31.
The real difference would appear to be that the changes in regulations brought in over the close season has made it a far more level playing field and, while it is based on just the Phillip Island experience, the upshot would appear to be that there could be a string of different race winners from a variety of teams over the championship.
And while it might not be the most comfortable reading for Huddersfield hero Sykes, it looks distinctly possible that the championship title could still be there for four or five riders to win come the final round at Qatar’s Losail International Ciruit on October 18 – and that would be fantastic for the sport.
