ROUND: 10/SEPTEMBER 1, 2013
NÜRBURGRING AUTODROM/NÜRBURGRING, GERMANY
WORLD SUPERBIKE
P76
WORLD SUPERBIKE CHAMPIONSHIP
Tom Sykes leaves
the German World
Superbike round in
the lead for the series
championship.
also annoyed to not have been
able to fight for both wins.
"In some ways I am disappointed, but it has been a decent
day and it could have been a lot
Lowes Stakes
His Title Claim
worse," Sykes said. "We all saw
what happened on the circuit
earlier, which was an incident
that happened less than a second behind me. All things con-
Sam Lowes scored five World Supersport race wins
in 2013 and the nature of his victory at Nurburging was
peerless. He was only fourth to start and had to pass his
own teammate Vladimir Leonov, then eventual secondplace man Fabien Foret and then Foret's Kawasaki Mahi
Racing Team India teammate Kenan Sofuoglu.
He did so with real pace, hitting the front on lap three,
but he also did it with real maturity and consistency commodities that he used to lack, by his own admission.
He is also now having to think about the title, which
he has avoided doing until now.
"I think I have to look at the championship a bit more
now as it is my ultimate goal," Lowes said. "We are not
far away, but we need to keep going."
He is now having some help from Yamaha, but still
not the full works material that Cal Crutchlow used to
sidered I am happy and moving
on to some tracks where the bike
should work even better. It was
important to keep Sylvain [Guintoli] behind me in that second
win the title once upon a time.
"We had an engine upgrade this weekend with
some input from Yamaha but it was done by my team,"
confirmed Lowes. "This weekend it has been a bit more
about data from Cal's time, because Cal was so dominant here, more that than anything else. But my team
has been working hard on the engines. There are no
magic parts, just information."
Before the German round, one race had been
chopped off the calendar, in India, so now there are
only three left. Sofuoglu knew he had to make ground
on Lowes in a strong fashion, as he did maybe too
strongly in Silverstone after their last lap clash.
This time it was Sofuoglu who fell, on his own, after
deciding not to settle for any kind of finish in Germany
that did not involve a winning scenario.
It was a bust, but it was a glorious try all the same
from the most successful World Supersport rider ever.
"I was pushing too much," Sofuoglu said. "Sam was
