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INTERVIEW WORLD SUPERBIKE RACER TOM SYKES P108 keep working. Race One at Donington was more like supercross with the way you and Jonathan were pointing and shooting and cutting and thrusting with one another. It was just an awesome race to watch. (Laughter) Yeah, I've had so many comments and good feedback from that race. If I have to say, I watched it a couple of times and for the Kawasaki Racing Team that was a hell of a race, you know? I think it was a very good show because in that race there were a lot of dif- ferent strategies. There were a couple different strategies from me and a couple from Rea. He was keen to get in front and hold the pace and he made a lot of late and hard moves to block pass me and try and stop me a little bit. After a few times I knew his strategies so we had to react. So when he was pass- ing me on the brakes—and I'm not the slowest on the brakes— he wasn't able to quite pull it to the apex and I saw a gap so I took it. In the past races I didn't have the feedback and confi- dence from my bike so I wasn't able to do that. Now we're just about there to where we need to be and I'm going to start putting those moves back on the guys and returning the favor. That's what it's all about. I have to ask you: How were you and Jonathan with each other after you got off the bikes? Absolutely no problem. Some of the English commentators were really surprised when we shook hands after the race. We saw that there was just about contact on two occasions in the race, but I think he knew I had Haslam and those guys knew they had to disturb me but after a full race under my hat I knew where my bike was really work- ing and where were suffering. I could see that Jonathan had some rear traction advantage compared to me in quite a lot of areas in race number one. My plan was to get a good start, which we managed to do, and walk away. We just dropped the hammer. To get that kind of gap in a World Championship race is very satisfying. For me, that was great. The bike was giving me great feed- back and I was able to be really consistent and for the first time this year we had some consis- tency from the rear grip. Doning- ton was a great weekend for me. We were fast on the qualifying tire; we had a nice start with race one; and race two was a race against the pit board, which came out good, as well. We had them covered. I'm just hoping now we can continue this form forward. There are still quite a few races to run and you can still have a shot at this title, don't you? Oh Jesus! No question. Yeah, there are still at least four people with a possibility to win it. Things happen when you're racing and points are lost and won far too easy. Anything can happen and that's why I'm happy knowing that hopefully we've turned this corner. Now we need to push on. CN some advantages in some areas and likewise for him. Of course there were some moments where we touched almost, but nah, we're two good riders. They say rubbing is racing and if we would have been knocking each other about I'm sure that the after-race interview would have been different, but there were absolutely no hard feelings and we went on to race two. And you essentially cleared right off from the start in race two, didn't you? Yeah, correct. Rea and [Leon] "WE KNEW WE HAD SOME ADVANTAGES IN THE PAST AND THAT WE NEEDED TO KEEP THOSE. YEAH, WE'RE NOT STUPID. IT'S EASY FOR PEOPLE TO JUDGE EARLY IN THE SEASON, BUT WE'LL KEEP WORKING."

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