Tom Sykes completed the first double victory of his World Superbike victory with another dominant display in race two at Donington Park. Sylvain Guintoli limited the damage to his championship lead with second ahead of Eugene Laverty but Sykes’ second win of the day has now moved him to within four points of the Frenchman.
Sykes was simply too strong, winning by a full eight seconds and added that a tweak to his Kawasaki ZX-10R made the difference from the tighter first race.
“I have been in World Superbike for a few years now and I got the first double win on home soil is a fairy tale. One click on the front suspension between races made the difference and we could see that in the second race time, which was better than the first one. The Ninja ZX-10R is working well and it has been all weekend so I feel very motivated. We are racing in a World Championship and these guys are as fast as you like and very competitive, so it is not as easy at it looked. Kawasaki is a very close unit and we have worked hard and everybody has seen how much better we are in the races. I got the circuit record yesterday and I got the new lap record in race two so I have the full set. I really enjoyed the support from the crowd and I hope they enjoyed the show. No better place to do my first double than at Donington Park. A good weekend and we are closer in the championship, just four points from the top. We’re in a strong situation, we have a good base setting and now we are going to some fantastic circuits.”
Guintoli and Laverty completed the podium to maintain their championship challenges although the Irishman was forced to withstand pressure from Marco Melandri before the BMW rider slid wide at the Foggy esses. Marco recovered from that error but not before Davide Giugliano had pinched fourth with Melandri left to hold off teammate Chaz Davies for fifth, a task he would succeed in by half a second.
Loris Baz kept up his consistent run in seventh ahead of Niccolo Canepa, Jules Cluzel and Michel Fabrizio but Jonathan Rea could only manage eleventh after electrical problems on his Honda.
