Tom Sykes says he tried his best but was let down by tyre selection which stopped him winning or at least beating his team-mate and championship rival Jonathan Rea in today’s World Superbike race at Magny-Cours.
The Kawasaki Racing Team rider finished third after leading most of the race at the French track. Despite hitting the front on the first lap, he lost out to Chaz Davies who took the lead on the 17th lap and was also passed by team-mate Rea.
Clearly disappointed, the former champ admits there was very little he could do once he started to struggle. “It’s very strange, during practice and warm up and also the race we had a good pace, I felt very, very comfortable and also had good consistency, especially on used tyres so I’m disappointed. The tyre selection we had today didn’t work for me.
“The start was good and it was so easy to manage these lap times and then half race distance I was struggling so this is something we need to understand. Ultimately, the big thing is I’ve found some form back in the wet now which is nice because I was so relaxed in the wet here and in the dry and things are coming good now but it’s a bit late in the season which is a shame.”
With his title hopes slipping away, he is now under pressure to hold onto runner-up spot, thanks to Davies winning three of the last four races.
“We’ll keep working, there’s four races left to run,” he added. “The only thing is, Chaz has shown great speed and I think a lot of this is down to the fact that him and his team made a great effort in the summer, put two great tests together and since then they’ve won three of four races so it’s proven,
“Obviously I’m fighting with Chaz for second in the championship so we need to really pay attention to this and try and react.
“We have to start pushing on now. Today I tried everything but unfortunately when I wanted to carry corner speed I was losing the front so I had to stop and square the corner off but these boys were able to keep that corner speed and there’s no way I could manage this problem against those two riders.
“I tried my best but obviously it wasn’t good enough. We’ll definitely improve the set up. At Jerez we won one race last year so I’m confident to go back there and keep working.”