Aprilia’s Sylvain Guintoli missed out on a possible 25 points in the final World Superbike race at Portimao – putting a massive dent to his championship hopes. The Frenchman slid in the wet conditions, wiping out his team-mate, Marco Melandri at the same time.
Guintoli has apologised for the incident, but is kicking himself this evening as he only managed to muster up an eighth place finish after remounting on his Aprilia - just ahead of championship rival, Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes.
With the Huddersfield rider out of podium contention, Guintoli had the opportune moment to close the gap at the top of the standings. But the crash put an end to all of that – and Sykes extends his lead at the top of the overall standings by 41 points.
“In race one I tried to take advantage of the first signs of rain. I was feeling good and had a good pace. But when conditions returned to normal the gap behind Sykes was too big and I had to settle for second place,” said Guintoli.
“In race two both Marco and I were clearly faster than our rivals, but unfortunately on turn 5 Rea braked really early and I tried to go up the inside. Marco was on the outside and I lost the front end on a bump which took us both out.
“I'm really sorry for him and for the team. We had a good result within our grasp. It was simply race contact and unfortunately in these conditions it's easy to make a mistake”.
