Cycle News

WORLD SUPERBIKE CHAMPIONSHIP appointment. For the Aprilia racing duo - Mar- co Melandri and Sylvain Guintoli - their second races were much more than disappointing. Starting from pole in race one Sykes stuttered a bit from the off, but he then went on to lead the race from lap four to the check- ered flag and even a nasty, but light, rain fall at half distance couldn't stop him from winning by 2.539 seconds when the drizzle eased off. He had been moving ahead of his peers by a second a lap at some stages and was being caught by more than that in the damp middle portion, but he ended up making it a seventh win and taking his personal career tally of victories to 21 – a number that puts in him a tie with Max Bi- aggi on the all-time wins list. Sykes was happy to be in such exalted company, especially with years ahead of him, but the only numbers he really cared about were the dimension of the Porti- mao winner's cup and the size of his championship advantage. Even after a relative shocker in race two - which was sud- denly and then very definitely wet VOL. 51 ISSUE 27 JULY 8, 2014 P99 Briefly... Eugene Laverty carried on with his injured foot at Portimao although he could not hold himself properly on the bike through the many turns at Portimao - his old 'home' track when he was a Parkalgar Honda rider. "On the bike it is giving me more bother than it was before, and I cannot push left or right on the bike," Laverty said. "I have a thumb rear brake on the bike, but I am not really using it. It is a bit much to use after using your foot for 10 years and trying to go faster. It is not normal." Jonathan Rea was fast all weekend at Portimao and started from the front row. "We are struggling with grip here, but everybody is," Rea said. "We made some changes just before Superpole and I think those changes worked. There is not as much grip as there was last year and the heat means that the tires are not in their working temperatures." Ducati's official test team rode at Mugello shortly before the Portimao race and tried out some MotoGP de- rived electronics that they liked so much they used them at the Porti- mao race, along with other updates. Chaz Davies felt good on them, but his teammate Davide Giugliano ap- peared to struggle with the same changes. And Davies also had some problems, even through he got on the front row. "We have new elec- tronics updates this weekend and there has been the odd gremlin here and there so it has been upsetting us at time in fourth practice," Davies said. "And we also had a new mo- tor this weekend - not a new spec, just a fresh engine. They have to set continued on next page The second of two World Superbike races at Portimao was wet – very wet. Jonathan Rea (65) got out front and stayed there while championship leader Tom Sykes (1) went backwards to finish eighth. Chez Davies (7) ended up third.

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