Cycle News

VOL. 50 ISSUE 37 SEPTEMBER 17, 2013 TWO Eugene Laverty (58) leads Tom Sykes (66) in their racetwo battle at the Intercity Istanbul Park in Turkey. for 2014 – thanks to his 2013 results. "More important than the first double win is the championship," said Laverty. "I started the day well behind, but now I am only 26 points behind with six races left. We had almost fallen out of the championship fight recently, but these two wins put us right back in there." Sykes took second in race two, after his third in the opener, giving him more podiums to take him further ahead in the championship. But for a rider who stood on the podium twice, and put another seven points between himself and his closest follower Guintoli, Sykes was far from delighted with a good day's work. "I was not looking at the fact that I extended my championship lead; I was just looking at it being my first time here," Sykes said. "Lost a lot of time to the rain on Saturday and because we found a lot of improvements between the races we could have done with that time. I was disappointed, because I would have liked to have come away with more points. This circuit definitely favors the Vee-configuration of the Aprilia. I am a racer and like to do my thing, but I had some limitations to deal with. Overall, I am happy enough but I would have been happier if we could have improved the bike a bit more." Melandri fought hard to shake off the effects of a bike with much lower grip than he expected, finishing second by 2.009 seconds in race one, but 10 seconds back in race two. No matter what his crew did, he felt the bike was simply not working as it should. Like Sykes, he was in better shape than many, in second and fourth. "We have had no grip since Friday, front or rear," Melandri said. "The bike was very unstable. Even on the straight the bike P89 Briefly... Tom Sykes made himself the fourth best ever exponent of the Superpole art in World Superbike history with his seventh pole of the year, and his first since Imola at round seven. Having not been to the Istanbul circuit before - unlike all his main rivals - and having found issues on day one, the last thing Sykes needed was rain on day two. But he and his team worked out a plan for Superpole after losing time to wet conditions, and now Sykes sits behind only Carl Fogarty (21), Troy Bayliss (26) and Troy Corser (43) in the list of all-time pre-race greats. The terrible season endured by 2011 World Champion Carlos Checa continued at Istanbul when a fast highside crash in first practice ended his weekend - he hit his left wrist, right upper ribs and right knee in his fall. He was later diagnosed with a broken left scaphoid bone in his wrist and was pulled from action. "He has a cracked bone in his scaphoid so for sure he is done," said Ducati Corse boss Ernesto Marinelli. "Originally he thought he had an injury on his ribs, but it is now unclear. So that is something that has to be investigated a little more. We cannot plan for America at the moment. We have to look a little bit more. Carlos already had some trauma in the past years and he has a screw in there [his wrist]. It looks like it is broken, but it needs further investigation. He will go back to Spain." Criticism of the lack of enough of the softest Superbike tires being continued on next page

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