sues – to catch him.
In the second race Aprilia's
probable farewell party went with
another black powder bang,
as Torres slid off the track in a
shower of dust and sparks. His
seemingly perennially unlucky
teammate, Leon Haslam, piled in
with his second win of 2015 and
the fifth of his career, however.
On a bucking bronco of an
RSV-4 RF in race one—one that
made his arms pump and his
brakes boil—Haslam was, by
comparison, on a black beauty
in race two and he managed
to hold of the close attentions
of Davies to win by just 0.110
second.
Sykes, in third again, was
right behind and could not quite
mount a challenge in race two.
There was no special record-
breaking all-time points tally for
Rea in Qatar after all, despite
having an unbelievably stellar
championship-winning season.
He only needed 25 points to
surpass the best-ever WSB
points total of 552, set by Colin
Edwards in 2002. After not
quite getting that in race one—a
mere 20 points for second—he
needed only five points from
race two. Even 11th would do.
Sadly, he got nothing, as the first
time this season, his bike let him
down, and he had to retire.
But his 2015 stats are still
worth recounting, as is his
supremacy. He scored 14 wins
(just one less than he had in his
entire previous WSB career),
23 podiums from 26 starts,
two pole positions and 11 fast-
est laps. Most riders would be
delighted with that over a career,
but this was in just one season
for Rea.
Davies outpaced Sykes for
runner-up honors in the cham-
pionship by 17 points finally,
splitting the Kawasakis, which
looked like a hard job at several
stages this season.
Behind the top wild bunch in
each race came the ever-improv-
ing Michael van der Mark, who
came up and then dropped back
in race one, and was a much
closer fourth in race two.
Haslam had been sixth in race
one ahead of stand-in Ducati
rider Xavi Fores. Fores' sore
knee from a big crash on Friday
would keep him out of race two.
David Salom was first eighth and
then ninth, Leandro Mercado
was ninth and then a career-best
sixth.
The soon to be ex-Pata Honda
rider Sylvain Guintoli slotted in
tenth in race one, and a sudden-
ly improved to fifth in the second
contest.
Alex Lowes (Voltcom Cres-
cent Suzuki) had a nightmare
goodbye to the GSX-R with
two DNFs, but Randy De Pu-
niet (Voltcom Crescent Suzuki)
matched his season-best with a
seventh-place finish in race two.
For MV Agusta, a double DNF
for Leon Camier was a sad end
to a promising season.
In the final championship
points Rea has 548, Davies 416,
Sykes 399 and Haslam 332. CN
VOL. 52 ISSUE 42 OCTOBER 20, 2015 P35
first we had a lot of problems
with the front," said the Spanish
rider. "The win is nice but I want
more. I want to be more comfort-
able on the bike and I want more
stability with my results."
Tom Sykes was locked in his
private battle to score enough
points to overtake Chaz Davies
for second in the championship.
Sykes was third in race one,
despite some kind of mystery
electrical fault that caused his
traction control to go full on.
He dropped like a stone in the
final few laps and was lucky that
Davies was too far behind – and
toiling against his own setup is-
PHOTOGRAPHY
BY
GOLD
&
GOOSE
