VOL. 51 ISSUE 40 OCTOBER 7, 2014 P61
up, Rea scored his eighth podium
of the year, only to end up with his
first DNF in race two. He was rid-
ing up front at the time, looking
for another win, but just too much
closed throttle in a left-hand corner
caused his back wheel to come
around and pitch him off.
In the second race Haslam, who
started 10th in each race after a dif-
ficult Superpole, caught up to the
struggling Sykes, but could not
get past. And then he simply rode
around the outside of his coun-
tryman to ease off to a clear third
place.
Haslam's podium left Sykes
fourth and fuming, having seen a
31-point lead turn into a 12-point ad-
vantage on a day when he had no
answers for Aprilia's V-four surface-
to-surface rockets, or their commit-
ted riders.
Anybody who finished anywhere
at Magny-Cours had done well.
The glass-like track in cold track
temperatures made for crashes ga-
lore, with seven riders coming off in
race one and only 13 finishing from
a field of 27 in race two.
Baz was in almost as much trou-
ble as his Kawasaki teammate,
but his early issue was only exit-
ing right-handers. In fact, he was
penalized to drop a position in
race one because he had run off
track so often, which was easily
done on the slippery circuit.
Haslam had been sixth in race
one and Davide Giugliano seventh
after crashing and rejoining. Be-
hind him things got more interest-
ing with one time multiple World
Superbike race winner Lorenzo
Lanzi eighth, Max Neukircher
ninth and the BMW of Sylvain Bar-
rier finshing as the top Evo rider
in 10th.
The second race had Lanzi fifth
in the wet behind Sykes, albeit 26
seconds behind the Brit and 46
seconds from Melandri.
Neukirchner was sixth and Baz
was seventh, struggling even
Briefly...
raft of new rules to adhere to, in-
cluding a massive change in engine
specifications. As the season wraps
up in Qatar in November, many
teams are lobbying for an extension
of the start of the test ban at least.
full glory," Sykes said.
clear starting position.
second row in Jerez and it
confusion, especially in race
take away some vari-
me. I am trying to make
possible for the races on a
Ducati's Davide Giugliano
his orbit, as Sykes was
than third place rider Jona-
Honda - the final rider
struggle, Chaz Davies made
his Ducati behave well enough to take
him to fourth place, one up on the
slightly subdued Sylvain Guintoli with his
Aprilia teammate Marco Melandri sixth.
Loris Baz turned his potential howler
of a home weekend into a more positive
one after going seventh on the grid and
he felt he was losing all his pace in one
long corner in Superpole.
Alex Lowes and Eugene Laverty
secured eighth and ninth places on their
GSX-Rs, with Leon Haslam 10th on his
Pata Honda.
Tom Sykes was the man once again in Superpole.
Sykes (1) gives a
thank you to his
teammate Loris Baz
(76) for letting him
past in race one.
