Kawasaki's Tom Sykes coasted to a marshal post and off the track in the first World Superbike race at Assen yesterday after a 50p radiator hose clip came lose and caused steam to spew from the back of his ZX-10R. Leon Haslam went past at 120mph, signalling furiously and race direction showed him the meatball flag.

The Hudderfield man had established, at least in WSBK terms, a healthy lead over the chasing pack which included Haslam and Jonathan Rea but once again, it wasn't to be for Sykes, luck just running out again as he looked like taking a dry win. He chose the same hard tyre as Rea in race two but couldn't make it work as effectively, slipping back to sixth but keeping hold of his third place in the title race.

“A tricky day but things could have been worse. It is just the way racing goes because we have had good pace all weekend with the ZX-10R and that pole time was very good from yesterday and I was confident o build on that. In race one we were able to do something from pole but unfortunately we had a small issue with the clip for the radiator hose," said Sykes.

"In race two with many things to consider, we chose a different tyre in the rear, the hard one, and it looked like it cost us a lot of time and caused me a lot of issues. At the end of the day we brought the bike on and there are many positives to take away. We have some very good circuits coming up for our bike.”