Kawasaki Racing’s Tom Sykes wants to keep up his consistent good form going into Superpole tomorrow, after topping the timed World Superbike free practice timesheets at Donington Park today, but the Yorkshireman believes there’s a ‘possibility’ that he can break his best lap record tomorrow.
Sykes set a 1’27.378 back in 2013, and also holds the lap record at the Leicestershire track too, but Huddersfield’s finest is confident that with a qualifying tyre he can go even quicker. He was only one tenth off his lap record during FP3, after his best time of a 1’28.172.
The Kawasaki man topped both FP2 and FP3 this afternoon, and successfully fought of the advances from his team-mate Jonathan Rea and Aruba.it Ducati’s Davide Giugliano. He is adamant that there are still improvements to be made on his ZX-10R but has been slowly progressing over the last three rounds.
“It is possible with a qualifying tyre to break [my best lap record]. We are getting into that window where we are could. We have seen some good race tyre times today and a qualifying tyre can add quite a lot of time – so it is possible,” said Sykes, speaking to bikesportnews.com.
“We made a small step in Aragon, then Assen then Imola and we are getting there. I have had a lot of criticism, and my team-mate has been going good – but I have been going consistent over three years and that's the beauty of it.
“We have taken a step back with the bike, but when we did that it gave some of our opposition a head start. Today has been good but we have got to keep on working. We will make some changes from FP3 to FP4 – but I can’t say what!”
