Cycle News

VOL. 50 ISSUE 40 OCTOBER 8, 2013 him 15 and then 23 seconds off Sykes. He is now sixth overall, and looking good to stay there. There were wild cards at Magny-Cours, including local endurance ace Vincent Philippe, who took his Crescent Fixi Suzuki to 13th in race one, but a brilliant sixth in race two. He would have done better in the opener except Toni Elias knocked him off after Elias himself had fallen. Elias remonstrated with Philippe, but finally admitted it was his fault that he fell at the Lycee corner, skittling the French rider before tem- porarily blaming him. David Salom stood in for the injured Loris Baz for the Kawasaki team and despite three practice crashes, and one particularly painful one, he finished 11th each time out in the races. It was a day of great celebration on the other side of the Kawasaki garage, however, as Sykes had speed and arithmetic on his side after three wins in the last four races. A second potential Laguna Seca win was only thwarted by what looked like a less than perfect rear tire. If not, he'd likely be even further ahead by now. There were no such tire or any other troubles in France, as Sykes left Magny-Cours a much happier man than he did last year - on the day he lost the championship by one half of a single point to Max Biaggi and Aprilia. Laverty and Guintoli have pretty much resigned themselves to just having too much to do to win the title, although their bikes are still maybe the best out there. They knew, like all 73,844 weekend race fans, that Sykes and his crew had more than the rest today. Look at it any way you like, it looks seriously unlikely Sykes can be caught now. The English rider dismissed Laverty's near admission of defeat as not serious. "That is him trying to put the pressure on me," Sykes said. "I do not know; I look at it differently. Is it mine to lose or mine to take? It depends on the frame P75 Briefly... not get the MV Agusta gig, which seems to be heading more towards the Yakhnich squad with each day that passes. Two crashes in the first day of action claimed two World Supersport riders. VFT Racing Yamaha's Fabio Menghi was feared to have cracked his back but was finally given clearance on that, but he had to withdraw with a broken hand. Local hope Florian Marino on the Kawasaki Intermoto Ponyexpress broke a scaphoid and an old World Supersport competitor of note, Matthieu Lagrive, came in to replace him at short notice. He had been out on his tractor tending his vines at home on Friday, when the first practice started. One of the many fast crashers at Magny-Cours was World Supersport rider Kenan Sofuoglu, who fell hard as he exited a corner, ran too wide, backed off and still crashed as he clipped the grass. He claimed not to have broken anything, but to having been well beaten in the crash, including losing some skin on his hands. He had already set the pole time in World Supersport when he crashed. In 2014, the World Supersport class will have to use a maximum of six engines across a full season. Also, there will be only one gearbox option for the class in 2014. Like the World Superbike class there will be no mid-season testing allowed, even at the special World Superbike tests that Dorna will organize after three events during the year, to allow machine and tire development tests to continued on next page

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