Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes is battling an infection in his digestive system ahead of this weekend’s Assen WorldSBK round and was yesterday in hospital receiving further treatment but he will travel to the Netherlands to take part.

Sykes was suffering with illness at the Motorland Aragon round and was still ill when the KRT team visited Portimao to test but the Huddersfield man believes he can race.

“I am really looking forward to going back to Assen as I am very excited and motivated to race there again. I will just have to see how I feel, physically, after the problems I have been having. This has distracted me a little bit but I am ready to go back to the Netherlands to race. We have had a couple of tests since the last event,” said Sykes.

“Even though I wasn’t at full capacity we definitely got some direction from those so I am looking forward to going back to the Assen layout. I really enjoy the place and I think every rider does. It was always an ambition to ride at Assen when I was young. We have some little set-up changes and developments that we tried in testing that we will be taking them to Assen.”