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***Malcolm*** · 17-09-2016, 06:01 PM

With Tom Sykes finishing the first race of the Lausitzring weekend in second place, and his team-mate Jonathan Rea crashing out after finding a false neutral in the entry to a turn, it was a day of diverging fortunes for the official Kawasaki WorldSBK riders.

Early in the 21-lap first race Sykes was sitting second and Rea third on their Ninja ZX-10Rs, having started second and sixth on the grid respectively. Rea had to qualify out of Superpole 1 in order to join the top 12 riders in the second Superpole contest, but did so with ease and ended up in a second row starting position.

A dry race unfolded after a wet track surface had welcomed the riders in the final free practice session, and Superpole 1, earlier in the day. As Sykes set about trying to keep pace with runaway race winner Chaz Davies, Rea was settling into his rhythm behind.

Sykes held a good pace to the end to make sure he kept second place from a closing Nicky Hayden but a gearchange issue on lap seven saw Rea run wide on corner entry, at turn ten, and then crash out as his bike re-engaged gear, suddenly regaining rear traction.

With Rea and Sykes 1-2 in the championship before the Lausitzring weekend had begun they enter the second and final day in the same order, but with Rea’s points advantage now reduced to 26.

In the Manufacturers’ Championship Kawasaki still has a very healthy leading advantage, now set at 90 points.

One more 21-lap race will take place on Sunday 18th, again at 13.00 CET, before the championship heads to France for the 11th round at Magny Cours in early October.

Tom Sykes, stated:

“I feel we have had an acceptable race. For sure not perfect but second position compared to many others is fairly good. I would like to say a big thank you to Marcel, Danilo and my side of the garage because I feel we achieved the best we could in the short time available. We had no previous data reference here and we were able to make a good race. We had to experiment a lot and I think we found an acceptable set-up. Not perfect, because ten seconds to the lead is quite a gap, but I was able to react to my pit board with Nicky Hayden sitting behind me. Tomorrow we need to find a bike set-up where I can do the lap times a little bit more easily. Today I was missing some apexes and tomorrow we need to try and iron that out. There is a lot of pressure at this time of the season and we have seemed to find some kind of momentum, so we have to build on that.”

Jonathan Rea, stated:

“It is a very disappointing way to end the first race. After a difficult start to the weekend we had been managing quite well. I had a good start and settled into a rhythm behind Tom, but Chaz Davies’ pace saw him in a different race. I found a false neutral entering turn 10 and tried to get it into first gear before the corner. Right at the exit of the track it went into first gear and highsided. I was not injured in the crash. This is the first time that my Alpinestars air-bag race suit has been called on to go off, so I was happy to be protected by that. Yesterday we did not have the pace but we made changes today. Now we will think about what we need to do to improve the bike a little again tomorrow. I need to understand what the bike needs now, especially under acceleration. It is a frustrating way to end the fist race day but we still have the championship lead, which is important. We will come out and fight another day.”

Anthony West (Pedercini Racing Kawasaki) came close to a top ten race ranking in 11th place on his Ninja ZX-10R. Roman Ramos (Team GoEleven Kawasaki) also scored points as he finished 13th. Dominic Schmitter (Grillini Racing Kawasaki) was one place away from scoring a point, 16th. A jump-start penalty saw Gianluca Vizziello (Grillini Racing Team) finish a lap down on the leaders and Saeed Al Sulaiti (Pedercini Racing Team) had a DNF today.

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