Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes still leads the overall World Superbike championship standings, but his advantage has been cut to 12 points from rival, Aprilia’s Sylvain Guintoli. The reigning champ could have wrapped up his championship at Magny-Cours today but he felt ‘restricted’ by the wet conditions, which prevented him from really challenging for the win.
He finished both races in fourth place, as the rain persisted at the French track. Sykes did the double last year, but he did not come close to the top step this afternoon.
Starting from pole after a record-breaking track best lap on Saturday Sykes could not stay in the pace of his main championship rivals but his two fourth places mean he is still in contention for the championship, and back-to-back title wins.
There were team orders in the Kawasaki garage and in the first race Sykes’s team-mate Loris Baz was told to lose a place, and let Sykes go ahead of him. The young Frenchman obeyed the team orders that were blatantly put on his pit board and Sykes went through to bag fourth.
“In race one that was the limit. I wanted to go faster but unfortunately we have had some limitations for some time in wet conditions and we cannot just quite get to where we need to be. For race two we were also restricted by conditions,” said Sykes.
“It was a big shame because we know I can go much, much faster. Given the conditions these results are better than I expected, so there is one bonus. I wanted to fight with Sylvain and win the race but first I needed to finish the race. It could have been a lot worse but it could have been better.
“We are still in the best position in the championship so we need to go to Qatar and hopefully it lives up to its reputation as a desert and we will come out swinging.”
