W
ith eight victories aboard his factory Kawa-
saki from 24 races in the 2014 World Super-
bike Championship, defending champion
Tom Sykes scored more race wins but six points
fewer than the man who usurped him as king of
Superbike, Aprilia's Sylvain Guintoli. The title chase
went right down to the wire, until the final race of
the year at Qatar, with Sylvain taking two race wins
and thus World Superbike gold on the Italian V4.
The chance to ride Sykes' 242 horsepower
ZX-10R at Kawasaki's first post-season test at
Aragon just a few weeks after I'd tested Guintoli's
bike at the comparable Mugello track, gave me
the chance to compare and contrast these two
supreme Superbikes. These are motorcycles that
challenged MotoGP lap times for a fraction of the
cost.
Riding each year's factory Superbike version of
VOL. 52 ISSUE 5 FEBRUARY 3, 2015 P79
Sykes' bullish
style wasn't
enough to net
him a second
world title.
