Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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WORLD SUPERBIKE CHAMPIONSHIP VOL. 51 ISSUE 23 JUNE 10, 2014 P103 again," Sykes said. "I am very angry, very disappointed and more so be- cause I feel that my side of the garage deserved a lot better. He [Baz] touched me twice in Phillip Island, once in As- sen, really pushed the limit in Doning- ton and there has to be a boundary, especially against teammates." For Baz it was just an accident, and he took fifth place in race two, be- ing overhauled late in the race by old Sepang master Elias. Baz was aware of the consequences of his fall but had some words in his own defense. "In race one I made a good start and Alex Lowes came inside in the first cor- ner and we were together," he said. "I just wanted to pass him in the second one. Tom [Sykes] braked really hard to make sure he did not touch anyone in front of him and I had to brake really strongly too. When I did I lost the front and my bike took him and Alex out. It is a big shame for the team, but I could not do anything. For me I crashed alone and my bike took somebody out and unfortunately it was Tom." In a year when only Kawasaki has shown any kind of repeatable, measur- Briefly... With a fresh engine on Saturday Canepa was the best Evo qualifier into Superpole 1. Both WSB and WSS riders got a long 75-minute first practice ses- sion at Sepang, to get used to the new layout and gather data that al- most none of them had with their own machines. Sykes had tested at Sepang in the past but a relatively long time ago, but others had mostly done their previous Sepang laps on GP bikes. Two top riders - Eugene Laverty and Jonathan Rea - fell on day one, sucked in by the blind cor- ners and radiuses that litter Sepang. Sheridan Morais's crash brought out the red flags, for a short time, very early in the first session. Ten Kate had two significant bike rebuilds to take care of before Su- perpole had even been run. On the first day Jonathan Rea had a crash big enough to wreck his rear swingarm and front forks, plus the ECU unit, making for a big hole in the 2014 crash budget. On day two Leon Haslam fell at turn three in the afternoon free session and his team took the view that his bike would be too badly damaged to continue. They started to build a new bike from scratch but when the crashed ma- chine was brought back to the pits the team focused their attentions on that, as it was not quite as badly damaged as they had first feared. Bryan Staring rode at Sepang but failed to qualify for either Superpole session, going 23rd out of 27 rid- ers in his real comeback, after an aborted attempt at Donington after ways the limit," said Duinker. "The combination of tire and track is never the same, from one track to another, never the same one day to the other, never the same in different temperatures. You always need to consider the amount of load that the combination of tire and track allows you. So we always work on load because load is traction and you always have to find that limit every time. In gen- eral, if the track goes over 45 degrees the traction will get worse." Ambient temperatures in Superpole were 35°C and track temperatures 60°C. Beating the heat was part of the game at Sepang. Eugene Laverty (58) took full advantage of the race-one melee to finish third on the Suzuki. Chaz Davies (7) and Toni Elias (24) battle behind him. continued on next page