Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes believes he ‘handed’ Aprilia’s Marco Melandri the World Superbike race one win, after he unusually made a mistake on the opening lap. The reigning champion went wide going into the Corkscrew, and has hailed his third place finish as a ‘shame’ after having a promising start.

Sykes led from the hole-shot and after the incident on the infamous Corkscrew was never able to catch up with Melandri, and Sylvain Guintoli. The Brit still has a healthy lead in the championship with a 41 point advantage, but vows to do better in race two.

“It is a shame as we had a great start, but we could have had better pace at the beginning but I went into the Corkscrew and I didn’t make a clean down shift. I probably could have made the corner but I didn’t want to do anything stupid as it was only the first lap and I ended up going into the gravel, and I handed my lead to the Aprilia guys,” said Sykes at the track.

“At the end of the day those guys rode really well and the bike was working a little bit better than the Ninja in some areas, and credit to those guys, but we need to make something for race two, as I couldn’t make up for lost ground. Hopefully race two will be better – but we will see.”

Click here for results