Tom Sykes made good use of his pole position start at Imola today, taking his Kawasaki Racing Team Ninja ZX-10R to sixth place in race one and fourth in race two, his best combination of the year.

Tom led race one for eight laps, and race two for four, as he battled for every millimetre of advantage up front. These results even best his fifth and seventh from last race weekend in Germany and Tom is now 14th in the championship, one place higher than he was at the start of raceday.

Allied to the Superpole win on Saturday Sykes and his team enjoyed their best weekend of racing on all fronts, and fourth in race one was a personal best for Tom on his Kawasaki.

For Tom’s Imola team-mate Ian Lowry this circuit was an even more difficult prospect to learn than the Nürburgring, which had hosted the previous round. Despite working hard in each race he just missed out on points in each 21-lap contest. He was 17th and 16th today.

After some of the pre-race sessions on Friday and Saturday had been plagued by frequently damp and very slippery track surfaces, raceday was dry, and the team found good settings for Sykes despite the lack of dry practice.

The championship title was also decided at Imola, and Max Biaggi is the 2010 WSBK Champion, the first Italian rider to have won this series outright.


Tom Sykes:

“Fantastic results for us. We had had a bit of a dream weekend; pole position as well in qualifying, and starting from the best grid spot really helped us out in the races. I am always happy leading races. I have made no secret of that and I just love racing on empty tarmac. I had a taste of that today, led a few laps so I was certainly not out of my league. It was fantastic to get a sixth and a fourth for Kawasaki.”

Ian Lowry:

“It is a hard place to learn here. I did my best lap time of the weekend in the race and I am improving all the time. I just lacked those two dry sessions yesterday so we were still making improvements to the bike even into the second race. I was disappointed in race two but I have to be realistic because I have never been to this track before.”