Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes will have mixed feelings when he arrives at the Italian track for World Superbikes at Imola this weekend. The Huddersfield lad scored two second place finishes at the circuit in 2012. But last year former team-mate Joan Lascorz crashed during testing at Imola. The Spaniard made contact with a concrete barrier, which left him paralysed.

“We all have many reasons to have memories of Imola, partly because we have had good results there in the past, but also because my previous team- mate Joan Lascorz suffered a serious injury there last year. I met him at a recent test and it was very nice to see him again,” said Sykes.

On the back of a podium finish and a no-score at the previous Portimao race, Sykes is keen to get back into action to push for more race wins to add to his total of three in the season so far.

“Imola is a track where even on the older model of Ninja ZX-10R I was competitive. Last year the bike was working great and even though we used a harder tyre than race winner Carlos Checa we pushed him quite a lot. Overall Imola is a circuit I hope we can be strong at once again. I think the riders that have been battling at the front so far for most of this year will be battling it out at Imola again.”