Factory Kawasaki's Tom Sykes has not given up his hopes of winning the 2012 World Superbike title and goes into this weekend's Nurburgring round on a high after his Moscow victory.

The Huddersfield man, who has signed a one-year extension on his contract with the squad, has a 41 point gap to series leader Marco Melandri but it only takes a couple of slips for that to be reduced considerably. Max Biaggi saw his lead sliced at Brno and then overtaken in Russia by the BMW-mounted Italian.

“We go to Germany now and the recent form of the Ninja ZX-10R is great, so we are obviously a lot closer in the ballpark to where we need to be with the overall set-up. Germany should be good for us - going on the results we have had there in the past. We got a win last year there," said Sykes.

"OK, in wet conditions of course, but even in the dry we have been quite close to the front there, which fills me with a bit more excitement for this weekend. The current package we have now is even better and that means that we have to go to Germany with the aim of collecting lots more points. People ask me about the positions in the points rankings now and realistically it is still possible to win the championship. The goal is obviously to keep inside the top three and keep pushing.”