Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes stormed to victory in the first World Superbike race at a very sunny Donington Park this afternoon. The Huddersfield rider led from the start and by lap twelve he managed to pull away and had a comfortable two second lead over the rest of the competitors out on track.
Sykes did feel the pressure from Pata Honda’s Jonathan Rea, in the early stages of the race, but the Isle of Man resident dropped off the pace, and had to fend off charges from Aprilia’s Sylvain Guintoli and GoldBet BMW’s Marco Melandri. With the other three riders fighting it out for second spot, this led the way for Sykes to push ahead and he was not troubled by any other rider to take a comfortable victory.
Even though Rea failed to make it on to the podium he did clock a new circuit record with a 1’28.469 lap, which he set on lap three, smashing the previous record set by Ducati Alstare’s Carlos Checa back in 2011.
Melandri eventually won the battle for second place, after working his way up from fourth. The Italian passed Rea on lap fourteen coming out of Goddards, and then it was déjà-vu for the former MotoGP rider as three laps later he got the better of Guintoli, also at Goddards and moved his way up to claim that second spot on the podium. The Italian was not able to fight with Sykes for first place, but did extend his lead over Frenchman Guintoli by two seconds.
Rea did not seem to be able to match the pace of either Guintoli or Melandri and finished the race in fourth, just missing out on a podium place. Sykes team-mate Loris Baz was battling for seventh for most of the race, but ended up coming across the finishing line in fifth, after overtaking Aprilia’s Eugene Laverty and Althea Racing’s Davide Giugliano.
Laverty did find himself as high as fourth after the first lap, but a mistake going into the Foggy Esses forced the Irishman down the grid and he found himself in sixth. Baz was able to take advantage of Laverty’s mistake but Giugliano was not too far behind, and the Italian decided to make his move at the Melbourne hairpin on lap eighteen. Laverty briefly overtook Giugliano at Goddards, before the Althea Racing rider out paced Laverty on the Wheatcroft Straight and finished in sixth, closely followed by the Aprilia rider in seventh.
GoldBet BMW’s Chaz Davies was in fifth for the opening stages of the race, but even during the first five laps could not catch up with team-mate Melandri, who already had a two second lead over the Welshman. Davies found himself in a battle for fifth when the rider went wide on lap eleven, leaving the opportunity for Giugliano, Laverty and Baz to go ahead. Davies ended the race just inside the top ten, in eighth, just in front of Fixi Crescent Suzuki’s Jules Cluzel, and Red Devils Roma rider Michel Fabrizio who rounded off the top ten.
Fixi Crescent Suzuki’s Leon Camier did not make the most of his second row start, as on lap two crashed his bike coming into Goddards. The rider was unhurt, but it put an end to his race one ambitions. There was a Brit who was missing from the starting line up, as Pata Honda’s Leon Haslam was withdrawn from the races today, on the orders of his team. He is still recovering from a nasty leg injury that he sustained at Assen back in April, and the Pata Honda team decided he was not fit enough to compete today.
