Cycle News

VOL. 51 ISSUE 28 JULY 15, 2014 P41 in race two. Significantly Sykes was more than six seconds up on the fourth place rider Davide Giugliano and his factory Ducati. Giugliano would set a new lap record of 1:23.403 in race two, but would also crash out. Sykes had led the opening race for a short time but over- cooked the entry to the Cork- screw, and ran along the inside of the hill, way off line, and con- sequently lost two places on the exit he would never get back. Better than trying to make the corner and crashing, he said later. One of his rivals may have been well served to mimic that course of action later on in race two. Proof that Laguna was not easy for the Kawasaki came from Sykes' teammate Loris Baz, who toiled all weekend on the same kit as Sykes and was ninth and fending off the Evo riders in race one. He was not quite able to penetrate beyond sixth in the sprint length race two, as Sykes went almost a second a lap fast- er. Sykes got lucky as well, in that Melandri fell after a mistake of his own making in race two, after taking a brilliant start. In a sprint race you have to do that kind of thing. We had one 25-lapper in race one. We had not one but three race twos, however, although only the final seven-lap version counted. The first attempted race two Briefly... the white flags out for a spot of rain that hung around but did not really affect the track too much. What was more of a problem was a significant engine blow up for Davide Giuglia- no's Ducati, which stopped the first session for oil to be cleaned up. He had another smaller technical issue in a later session and ended up only ninth fastest at a circuit he holds the race lap record at. He did, however, improve to fourth after Superpole. The high-profile clash between Syl- vain Guintoli and Marco Melandri at Portimao has left an icy feeling in the garage at times, with Guintoli saying that, "You can feel tension. I do not mind. I am not one to be up- set for things like this I get on well, normally, with people. It was just a racing incident. I am not saying it was not my fault, but I am saying I did not do anything completely out of order." Two of the top young riders in World Superbike had their first experiences of riding at Laguna Seca this week- end, Loris Baz from KRT and Alex Lowes from Voltcom Crescent Su- zuki. For Lowes, fifth after day one, it proved relatively easy, even if his Superpole was an unhappy one in 11 th ; but the straightforward path Baz expected proved to be a rocky road. His unhappy first-day 11th carried on, even if he improved to eighth after Superpole. "I feel better today, but yesterday I was far away and not riding so well," said Baz. "Today we were just missing some little things, but I am sure we can find some good things in warm-up tomorrow. I was not at my best in practice at Portimao either but then the races were good, so we will be trying to find some bet- ter things." relocated the ECU, or other compo- nents, then you cannot use the street- bike wiring loom even if you wanted to. But can a loom, the only free item on the 2015 electronics menu as far as cost is concerned, be considered a performance part? Maybe yes, if only because a sub- standard loom would stop an other- wise healthy and well-developed bike from finishing races, as it is the only link between sensors and ECUs. Wiring looms may well be out of sight, out of mind, but they are as inte- gral to final results as any other part. Marco Melandri (33) also led the re-started second race with Sykes (1), Guintoli (50), Jonathan Rea (65), Toni Elias (24) and the rest in tow. continued on next page

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