Aprilia’s Marco Melandri took full advantage of a mistake from Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes to bag his maiden victory at the Laguna Seca circuit in the first World Superbike race of the day. The Italian had what he has labelled as ‘an awesome’ start from row two, and went up to second going into turn one.

Sykes ended up going wide going into the Corkscrew allowing Melandri and his garage buddy Sylvain Guintoli to go into the lead. The former MotoGP racer proved uncatchable and by the final lap had a 0.9 second advantage over his French colleague. But Melandri remained focus and calm – and his technique worked.

“I had an awesome start, but on the first lap I was a bit scared because Tom tried to pull away at the beginning, but when Tom made a mistake I was able to get past and I tried to stay focused and ride consistently, and not make any mistakes. I also saw Sylvain losing some time, but it was a long race and not easy to keep focused. But my team did a really good job too,” said Melandri.

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