The ninth round of the FIM Superbike World Championship, at Laguna Seca in the USA, saw Tom Sykes secure a podium place in race one and then follow it up with his eighth race win of the 2014 season, to extend his championship leading advantage once again. Loris Baz scored good points in each race and David Salom (KRT SBK Evo) won both SBK Evo contests to put himself into an even more commanding lead in the Evo class.
With Sykes third in race one his team-mate Baz was unable to join in the podium celebrations this time around, going ninth in the first 25-lap race and then finishing up race two in an improved sixth place, after three starts which were the result of two red flag incidents.
On a very busy raceday Sykes had a strong run in the first race, with only a small lack of rear traction keeping him in third position, rather than challenging for the race win. He had started from pole and was leading the race before he ran wide into The Corkscrew section, went off track and was passed by Marco Melandri and Sylvain Guintoli. He could not quite get back on terms and finished third, for his 12th podium of the year.
In race one Loris Baz was unhappy with his overall set-up and he was unable to get up to his usual competitive pace throughout. He was ninth in the final results, with the KRT SBK Evo Ninja ZX-10R of
David Salom in tenth place and only three seconds behind Loris. Salom was top Evo rider with his top-ten race finish.
In race two, finally held over only seven laps after two restarts after red flag accidents, Tom was sitting behind leading rider Melandri when the Italian rider fell, giving Tom a lead from lap two that he would maintain to win by over a second. Sykes now leads by 44 points in the championship standings, over Sylvain Guintoli. Baz’s set-up and overall performance improved in race two and he is currently fourth in the championship, only eight points from third place.
After race two Salom was once more the top classified Evo rider and he had his best individual race finish of 2014 with eighth place. David has scored in every single race bar one and he now leads the Evo class by 37 points with four rounds and eight races remaining. In the manufacturers’ championship Kawasaki leads by 24 points.
After an unusually long summer break, only punctuated by an official test session at Portimao between 21 and 22 July, the championship has its next appointment at Jerez de la Frontera, Spain, on September 7th.
Tom Sykes: “An eighth win of the year and one more point ahead in the championship. I knew this circuit would be difficult for us after last year, and then again after race one this year, so if you had offered me that deal last night I would have taken it. I thought my points gap may have been reduced after this round. I ran a bit wide at the Corkscrew on lap one of race one but the bike was working well, just not well enough to win. The guys who finished ahead of me have a great track record here, have ridden so many times in GPs and both did well last year. I was happy with everything in race one but in the pure performance of rear traction we gave away too much. In race one you can talk about having a strategy but in race two, with all the red flags and a short race it was a case of go big! I was motivated after race one and the bike was working well. We made changes for the first attempt at race two and we improved it, and then for the first restart it was better again and then for the final part we made another change and it was better again. I am very happy to have extended my championship lead and a great pleasure to take the win. I can go into the summer break very relaxed and very motivated.”
Loris Baz: “We have been strong in all rounds this season but this one was not the same. We saved some points and we are still not so far from the riders immediately in front of us in the championship. I am not sure what was wrong in race one but from lap two until the end I could not enter the turns, could not exit the corners the way I wanted. I cannot understand why because we have changed the bike settings a lot. I have tried to change my style but our result is very similar and it is very strange. In race two we found some things that worked better for us but not quite enough. It was a strange weekend but we made a recovery in race two and for sure it was better than race one.”
David Salom: “Two Evo class wins today but every race the competition gets stronger, so it is not easy. In the championship we have more points over our main competition going into the summer break. It was a very difficult weekend in practice here because I could not do one very fast lap but in race one I did not get a good start but I pushed the whole race. I needed to keep my concentration and winning was a very good end result for us. Race two was very short but we won our part of it again and now we have a bigger lead in the Evo class.”
via Kawasaki
