Tom Sykes will be Kawasaki's sole factory rider for this weekend's World Superbike meeting at Assen as Joan Lascorz recovers from the horrendous accident sustained in testing. The Spanish rider crashed at Imola in the post-race test two weeks ago, damaging the C6 vertebra, and underwent a lengthy operation to reposition his spine in Bologna last week.
Sykes has a 100% pole position record in 2012 and finished on the podium in both races at Imola. The Briton hopes to continue his impressive form and give the tram some welcome good news after a tough fortnight.
“We showed we had some speed at Assen last year, in terms of sheer speed. But, with the new balance we have found on the Ninja ZX-10R, I am confident we can keep things going in an even better direction this year.”
“I got a chance to test after Imola but the track conditions were very poor at Valencia, as bad as I have ever experienced there. Even at the end of two days I was leaving a big dust trail behind me down the straights. We tried out some things on the bike and we still found a couple of things on the bike that we can use later in the season, maybe. And of course every bit of information we discover in testing is very useful to us. I have some good people working with me and they seem to be able to put all the data together into a race package, which is a great asset to have. They are always thinking ahead.”