After piling in with his best weekend ever in the first round at Australia last month, and only just being pipped for what would have been a stand-alone Superpole total winning record in Thailand, Tom Sykes was looking forward to WorldSBK race one on Saturday at Buriram like it was Christmas.
Sykes even feels he had a package fit to challenge for the race win each day in Chang. But a brake problem saw that idea smashed on raceday one, and he dropped back to score sixth place in race one.
His problem was much more unusual in race two. “Let’s just say we had a technical issue with the front fork set-up,” said Sykes after the second race. “I do not want to go too much into detail but for sure there was something broken. Which as it happens, maybe started from yesterday as well. It is a big shame, a terrible weekend, so we will just see what we can do at the next round.
“I am very disappointed because I feel we could have been a lot stronger and certainly had a package on Friday capable of winning the races. It is unbelievable how much bad luck we have had when it came to the races here. I am riding well and the bike is generally working well, so we just need to get this fixed and not have any more technical issues.”
In race two it was his team-mate Jonathan Rea’s turn to endure brake issues, and Sykes agreed that it was probably the same kind of thing as he had on Saturday.
“I can pretty much guarantee that it will be the same issue, we are riding the same bike with the same material,” said Tom. “I am well aware of the issue we had. We had a lot of stress on the braking system and the boys worked hard, but yesterday was just over- demand of the braking system. Jonathan was in a battle, and it looks like he asked too much of the system.”