Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes did not have the best of World Superbike race weekends, after he missed out on winning back-to-back titles at Qatar this evening, by a total of six points.
During the drama filled first race under the floodlit Losail circuit his team-mate Loris Baz ignored obvious team orders to drop back a place to allow Sykes to take second, to close the gap on Guintoli in the championship. But the Frenchman ignored those orders leaving Sykes in third and having to battle it out for the title in the final race.
The Yorkshireman had a strong start in race two but soon experienced tyre issues and Guintoli overtook the Kawasaki man to take to the lead to finish the season in a dominant fashion, leaving Sykes to battle it out with Pata Honda’s Jonathan Rea for second.
But Sykes slipped back to end in the race in third for the second time today. He has had a strong season, but it did not end the way that he hoped, but he is already looking forward to the future and 2015.
“On the circuit you are on the side of the tyre and that's the same limitations we have had with the bike before, and we know how strong the Aprilia’s are, and in the end we were losing time,” said Sykes at the track.
“There are a few things that have crossed my mind today, but we were on the back foot a bit today with Guintoli riding so well. But I feel like I did back in 2012 and I will do a lot of thinking and it will be a long winter, but next year will be interesting.
“I don’t mind taking my hat off to a worthy champion. We have tried so hard all year and of course, a few incidents come to my mind now. But it is what it is. After the last few rounds, we knew Sylvain and Aprilia would have been strong. Unfortunately the outcome of today was… the winner takes it all. Sylvain, he did a great season. Obviously we’ve had some limitations today. I tried my best in Race 2, unfortunately it wasn’t enough. But that’s racing. Luckily this race is quite late in the year so I won’t be too hard on myself for too long. The start of the next season won’t be too far away and I’ll be putting my efforts into that.”
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