Reigning FIM Superbike World Champion Jonathan Rea and 2013 champion Tom Sykes once more came out on top during the Misano race weekend, with Rea and Sykes replicating Saturday’s race result of Jonathan first and Tom second, albeit in a different kind of race. Rea’s latest win puts him 66 points ahead of his official Ninja ZX-10R team-mate in the championship table, with just one more round at Laguna Seca to come before the long summer break begins.

The lead Ninja ZX-10R pairing had the field to themselves almost from the start once again after taking a clear 1-2 on Saturday but this time it was Sykes who did the front running. His lead lasted until lap 17, when Rea put in a pass entering the first corner and held the line on the way out of the chicane.

Rea pushed on to create a gap that ended up being 2.963 seconds at the end of the 21-lap contest around the 2.226km circuit on Italy’s Adriatic coast. Realising he would not catch his team-mate before the end, Sykes had eased off slightly to make sure of his strong second place finish.

Misano was Rea’s seventh win of the year, and the 36th of his career. He remains the fourth most successful WorldSBK rider in history in terms of race wins.

The second race was held in cooler conditions than Saturday’s opening event, with Rea making a tyre option change that he later said was an important part of his race two winning strategy - particularly when added to chassis set-up modifications that also helped his Sunday cause.

Although Sykes’ push at the front could not quite be maintained to the end of the race he still scored another 20 valuable points as he and his team-mate moved further away from their other competitors in the championship standings. Kawasaki leads the Manufacturers’ Standings by 74 points after Misano.

Rea has now scored seven wins this year, and has a total of 343 points to Sykes’ 277. Five rounds and ten individual races remain, starting at Laguna Seca between 8th and 10th July 2016. Before then, the KRT squad will undertake a day of testing at Misano tomorrow, Monday 20th June.



Jonathan Rea, stated: 

“My pre-race target was achieved so I am super-happy. For many reasons I really wanted to win here and to make it a double is incredible. I love racing here; it is where I had my first career WorldSBK race win. Approaching the mid part of the season I had said many times just how important the next two races would be before the summer break, so to make it count this weekend is really good. Race two was a little bit of a different strategy. I set off so fast yesterday but today we used the 377 rear tyre and I think that made the difference. I want to say big thanks to Pirelli because they also brought the 375 tyre, the one we used in race one for the first time this weekend - and the 377, which we won race two with. That was the same tyre we used in Donington, so it is working in cooler and hotter conditions, which is big credit to them. Also credit to my crew because compared to race one we changed the bike quite a lot and we were able to conserve our tyre a little bit better.”

Tom Sykes, stated, 

“I think today I was not as strong as I intended to be but probably Jonathan also found something extra, because that is how it looked. Two times second, and pole position, normally that would be an acceptable weekend so I am grateful for those things, but Jonathan is the one who we are challenging in the championship and we lost some ground. There are still five whole rounds to go, so we have a long time remaining. But my focus is not on that yet. We will test at Misano tomorrow and I hope we have clear conditions because I am very interested to find a solution for something. It is basically about turning and it was very clear in sector one of the track today. We will keep working to improve things because I want to win races.”



Behind the top two KRT riders Anthony West (Pedercini Racing Kawasaki) placed 11th today, three seconds up on Roman Ramos (Team GoEleven Kawasaki). Dominic Schmitter (Grillini Racing Team Kawasaki) just missed out on a point in 16th place and Saeed Al Sulaiti (Pedercini Racing Kawasaki) was 19th. Gianluca Vizziello (Grillini Racing Team Kawasaki) did not complete the race. In the championship Ramos is 15th and West 17th.