Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes clinched an historic World Superbike win at Donington Park this afternoon, after doing the double two years in a row.
For the second time today the Huddersfield rider out-paced his team-mate Loris Baz to take another victory at his home circuit. It was a repeat of last year’s race at the Leicestershire track as Sykes dominated the race weekend once again taking home maximum points, not once but twice. Aprilia’s Sylvain Guintoli finished on the final step of the podium in third.
At first it was Aprilia's Marco Melandri who took the lead at Redgate, but there was a collision of bikes between Giugliano and Baz but all riders managed to stay on. Haslam had to go wide, and slipped form fourth to tenth. But while that was going on Guintoli stormed on ahead of his diminutive team-mate on lap two.
But on the fifth lap Lowes touched the back off Melandri’s Aprilia going into the Melbourne Hairpin and both crashed, but were unhurt. The Derby-based rider was able to remount to rejoin in 20th followed by Melandri. But seconds later Lowes’ Irish team-mate, Eugene Laverty crashed for the second time today while in eighth, but was also able to rejoin the race in 22nd.
While all the crashes were occurring further up the field Sykes made up some places and went up to third, just behind team-mate Baz and Guintoli, with Giugliano and Rea close behind.
On lap eight the leading trio managed to pull away from the Ducati of Giugliano by two seconds. In a repeat of the earlier race another British battle emerged between Rea, Davies and Haslam for a place in the top five. At first it was the Pata Honda of Rea who led the way, with a one second advantage over the Welshman.
Three laps later Baz overtook his fellow countryman to go into the lead, only for his team-mate to do one better at Goddards and Sykes went into first, pushing Guintoli to third. It was a case of déjà-vu as Guintoli fell off the pace and it was a battle of the Kawasaki’s once again with Sykes leading by 0.4 seconds over his French colleague on lap 14.
Elsewhere Davies moved into fifth, after making a pass that stuck over Rea, and when the chequered flag appeared it was another fifth place finish for Davies, followed by Pata Honda’s Rea and Haslam and Red Devils Roma’s Toni Elias.
By lap 17 Sykes was on a roll, edging further away from Baz and by Melbourne he had a 1.9 second lead. Further down the track Lowes was closing in on Iddon and went up to ninth, and well inside the points after a move at Redgate. Laverty ended the second race of the day in the points, in thirteenth.
Alstare’s Christian Iddon did finish in tenth, on his Bimoto BB3 Evo bike, but will not take home any points for his team, due to Homologation rules. Kawasaki’s David Salom won the Evo class, finishing eleventh overall.
