Aprilia’s Eugene Laverty once again out paced Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes to take the World Superbike win, his second victory of the day at the Istanbul Park circuit, and his first double of the season.
Sykes was leading the race and did have a one second advantage over second place Laverty, but that was not to last as the Irishman slowly crept up on the Yorkshire lad and by lap twelve he was on the tail of the Kawasaki, and made a move to go into the lead on the last turn.
Laverty pushed on ahead and however hard Sykes tried he could not catch up with the Aprilia machine. But it is not all bad for the Yorkshire rider, as Sykes now leads the championship by eight points, after his second place finish, from Aprilia’s Sylvain Guintoli.
The Frenchman did get off to a strong start and immediately placed his bike behind Sykes, but his Monaco based team-mate was never too far behind and on lap 3 on turn fifteen Laverty made a move on Guintoli that pushed him to third, and that is where the England based rider finished the race.
GoldBet BMW’s Marco Melandri could not clinch a podium place in the final race of the day. The Italian started the race in fifth behind Red Devils rider Toni Elias. The former MotoGP racer’s were in a fight for fourth for most of the race, but on lap six on turn 14, Melandri passed Elias and stormed on ahead.
But Elias had another BMW to contend with, and that was Melandri’s Welsh team-mate, Chaz Davies. The Powys rider was never far off the pace of the former Moto2 champ, and made a move that stuck on lap 16. Davies ended up having a nightmare final lap, and made a mistake and Elias was able to go in front, and crossed the finishing line in fifth, with Davies in sixth.
Pata Honda’s Leon Haslam was engrossed in a battle for seventh with Fixi Crescent Suzuki’s Jules Cluzel. The Derbyshire lad did not have the best of starts and was languishing tenth for most of the session.
In a repeat performance of race one he was locked in a battle with stand-in team-mate Michel Fabrizio, but soon Haslam found enough speed to pull away, but he could not out pace the Frenchman. The Honda rider finished in eighth with Althea Racing’s Davide Giugliano and Fabrizio rounding off the top ten.
Ducati Alstare’s Ayrton Badovini was absent from race. He did make it out earlier this morning but retired due to a technical problem. The Italian is still suffering from an ankle injury, and was in too much pain to take part in race two.
