Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes stormed to victory in the first World Superbike race of the day at Assen. The Brit led from the first corner and dominated for all of the 22 laps, ending with an eight second lead.
There was an ongoing battle for the last two remaining podium spots, involving Pata Honda’s Jonathan Rea, alongside Aprilia team-mates Eugene Laverty and Sylvain Guintoli, who all continued to fight with each other until the moment their bikes crossed the line. But in the end Isle of Man resident Rea clinched second place, followed so closely by Frenchman Guintoli.
Laverty did not have the best of starts, but did manage to get himself up to third, and tried to make a break when he passed Rea but his fellow Irishman was having none of it. Guintoli also passed Laverty which set up a fantastic battle for second when Guintoli also went under Rea for second.
Rea, however, knew where he was slightly quicker than the Frenchman and put a 140mph pass on the Aprilia only for Guintoli to outbrake him into the first corner on the last lap. Guintoli knew where Rea would try to come back past and defended, but the gutsy Isle of Man resident just squeezed through again in the same place and took second. Laverty could do nothing and had to settle for fourth place.
Sykes’ team-mate Loris Baz rounded off the top five, followed closely by Althea Aprilia’s Davide Giugliano. GoldBet BMW’s Chaz Davies had to start from thirteenth on the grid, but made the most of his good start and clawed his way up to seventh after having a mid-race battle with Fixi Crescent Suzuki’s Jules Cluzel. The Welshman got the better of the French rider, but could not close the gap to compete with Giugliano.
Leon Camier finished the race inside the top ten and on lap 14 the tall Kent racer overtook former World Superbike champion Carlos Checa to move to ninth, which is where he remained till he crossed the finishing line. It was a valiant effort for the Brit, as he didn’t even make it into Superpole yesterday because of technical issues, and is still riding his Suzuki with a massive gash in his leg. Checa seemed off the pace, and could not contend with the threat posed by Camier, and finished race one in tenth.
There were no crashes or incidents during the race, but all the action started in the warm up lap. GoldBet BMW’s Marco Melandri stopped halfway around the circuit and had to push his bike back to the pits, because of a gearbox issues, meaning the former MotoGP rider could not compete in the race. The grid was already two riders down before Melandri’s exit, because Pata Honda’s Leon Haslam broke his leg on Friday and Team Pedercini rider Alexander Lundh suffered a shoulder injury yesterday and was unable to race today.
