Round eight of the FIM Superbike World Championship will take place at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli between 19th and 21st June, with KRT riders Jonathan Rea and Tom Sykes out to compete at the very front of the action once more, at what is a favourite venue for both riders.

So far in a season that began in Australia and has most recently held a round in Portugal, KRT’s official riders have won 12 of the 14 races, with runaway championship leader Jonathan Rea having scored ten of those individual victories.

His start to his first season in Kawasaki colours has been unprecedented as he has scored not only double-digit race wins but he has added second place results in every other race to take a lead of 124 points into the forthcoming round.

With just over half the season gone Rea has a total of 330 points, in what has been the most effective start to a season in WSB history. He has dropped only 20 points in 14 individual races. Having won the first of his current career tally of 25 race wins at the Misano circuit, way back in 2009, Jonathan is looking for more silverware this year.

Second place in the championship right now is recent Donington Park double race winner and 2013 World Champion, Tom Sykes. He scored second place in race one in Portugal and moved to second place in the title chase. Tom is only one behind Rea in terms of career WSB race wins, with 24.

Sykes scored a double WSB win at Misano in 2014 and hopes to replicated that result to ease away from the riders behind in the points table before the series heads to the USA and then Malaysia over the next two months.

The regularly remodelled 4.226km Misano circuit has recently been resurfaced, which will provide a new characteristic for the riders to take into consideration, especially in the hot temperatures everyone expects to find on the Adriatic coast of Italy in late June.

Jonathan Rea:

“I had my first ever WSB race win at Misano and I always enjoy going to Italy. The Ninja ZX-10R has been really competitive at Misano and I am looking forward to it. We will see on Friday how the bike is because it is another new track for me on the Kawasaki but we will see how things are in the first session and take it from there. I hope that there will be a lot of people there on the weekend; there always seems to be. Imola was pretty full and the Italian crowds always have a warm place in my heart. Temperatures should be hot again, like in Portimao, so I expect to be strong. It is the last European race for a while, before we go on two fly-aways, so it would be good to make it count.”

Tom Sykes:

“This year we have had a bit of bad luck, which is very unlike us, but we have got the bike working well for us and in a way that was giving us good results. I am looking forward to going to Misano because it is a great part of the world. There is a great atmosphere just being there in general and we will be back to competing in front of the Italian fans. It is nice to be racing on the coast of Italy and this time of year the temperature is up, the sun is generally shining and all-in-all it is a great venue.”

David Salom (Kawasaki Team Pedercini) and Roman Ramos (Team Go Eleven Kawasaki) continue to keep each other company in the championship standings, with Ramos 14th overall and Salom 15th. 2014 SBK Evo champion Salom is hoping to record two strong finishes to close up a five point gap to Ramos.