Cycle News

WORLD SUPERBIKE CHAMPIONSHIP VOL. 51 ISSUE 25 JUNE 24, 2014 P85 should possess. He thanked his team effusive- ly and often from the interview stages, but his crew chief Marcel Duinker knew this was a special performance that not many riders could deliver that made the big- gest difference on race day. For a man who doesn't drink, Tom Sykes is awfully fond of a double. All six of his 2014 wins have come as part of a full set, and he now leads on most races won so far this year with six. Sykes was clearly thirsty for points anyway, having lost so many to other rider's mistakes and some pure bad luck in 2014 already. Only in race two, when Ducati Superbike rider Davide Giugliano started so fast that it resulted in a jumped-start, did Sykes not have the lead in the 21-lap Misano con- tests. After Giugliano took his ride through penalty Sykes was effectively home free, with only 18 or so laps of pain to go, plus concentration that helped him get over his obvious pre-race dis- advantage in fitness. "I am very pleasantly surprised at these results, but I knew that the adrenaline and the concen- tration would give me something extra," said Sykes. "I honestly was not expecting to get that much extra, but massive credit to all the team. It all went to plan in race one. I knew I had some limi- tation all weekend and I said that to my crew chief, and what the is- sues were. After that you need to get on and do the job. We have been working a lot all weekend and we have been fine-tuning Briefly... ablaze for a long time. Aaron Yates' Hero EBR V-twin stopped in smoke just as the session restarted and brought forth another track cleanup operation. The Superbike commission refused an approach by the Hero EBR team (although the manufacturer was un- specified in the communiqué) to al- low them to use more engines this year for rider Geoff May. They were rebuffed by a majority decision. Bi- zarrely Aaron Yates has lots of en- gines left in his eight-engine allow- ance (despite a problem in practice at Misano), but May was on his last engine at Misano. After a big crash in testing and miss- ing the Phillip Island round through pelvic injury, then suffering an even more serious car crash injury in Eu- rope when he got back, BMW Mo- torrad Italia Evo rider Sylvain Bar- rier was back in the racing business at Misano. He was 17th of 30 riders at Misano, allaying the early fears some had that he would come back too early. His return meant that suc- cessful stand-in rider Leon Camier had no ride for the Misano round. CLUZEL SHOWS A CLEAN PAIR OF HEELS are improving every race," said Jacobsen from the podium. "Another new track for me, but the bike felt really good in the race and I just could not stay with [Jules] Cluzel, who had a big gap at the beginning. I did all I could and to bring it home on the podium for my first podium; I was pretty happy with that." Jacobsen put in the best lap of the race on lap five, a 1:39.436. He is the first American rider to get on a World Supersport podium since the champi- onship became a full FIM Champion- ship series in 1999. Before that World Supersport was a World Series. Sofuoglu would finish fourth and remain well down from the champion- ship challengers, in sixth place. He had set-up issues and he even admit- ted that all the hard times he and his team had had with technical problems - even while leading races - have had an affect on the three time champion himself. Jules Cluzel (center) is flanked by Michael van der Mark (left) and PJ Jacobson (right), with the New Yorker earning his first World Super- sport podium finish. Chaz Davies finished fourth in the first race, but crashed out of race two.

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