Aprilia’s Eugene Laverty had one goal this weekend, and that was to the close the gap on current World Superbike leader, Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes in today's two races at Magny-Cours. But unfortunately the Irishman could not find the pace to battle with Sykes and instead found himself in a fight for second place with team-mate Sylvain Guintoli.
In the first race on dry asphalt Guintoli stayed with Sykes after starting from the second spot on the grid, but he was unable to make a decisive attack, partially because of the red flag that came out due to a crash two laps from the finish. Laverty, riding in fifth place for the early part of the race, made up ground on GoldBet BMW’s Marco Melandri and then on Althea Racing’s Davide Giugliano, crossing the finish line behind his team-mate.
Despite the grey skies, race two also started without rain, following much the same script as race one with Sykes blazing the trail up front followed by Laverty and Guintoli. The two Aprilia Racing team riders switched places several times but were unable to contain the leader's mad pace. In the final lap another red flag came out as rain began to fall during with both of them also falling victim to harmless crashes just seconds before the race was called.
With today's third and second result Laverty maintains his second place in the rider standings, 37 points behind Sykes and one point in front of Guintoli, and now the Monaco based rider is looking towards Jerez as his last chance to challenge for the title.
“Tom was from another planet today. I tried to keep up with him in the first laps, but he gained too much ground coming out of the slow turns. Toward the end Sylvain and I engaged in battle,” said Laverty.
“I usually don't like these situations because I have a lot of respect for him and because we are still both within reach of the title, but every point is important at this stage of the season. I'm obviously pleased with the two results although our goal was to reduce the gap behind the leader.
“We made some improvements to the bike between Race one and Race two and I was definitely faster, but apparently it wasn't enough. Jerez will be our last chance to make a play for the Rider Championship”.
