Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes won his seventh consecutive World Superbike race at Donington Park this afternoon and crossed the finishing line with a three second advantage over second place finisher, Davide Giugliano. Sykes’ team-mate Jonathan Rea extended his lead in the championship, with a third place finish.
But the reigning champion did experience technical difficulties as he hit a false neutral on his bike five times during the race, which caused him to run wide and lose out on time. Giugliano who battled hard with Sykes, in the end did not have the pace to contend with Huddersfield’s finest.
It was not a good race for Aruba.it Ducati’s Chaz Davies as he crashed twice during race one and was leading the charge when he hit the tarmac for the first time. Initially it was Davies who got the hole shot followed closely by Sykes and Giugliano, but the fiery Italian made a tight move on Sykes going underneath him at Goddard’s on only the opening lap. With the move the Yorkshireman went wide allowing for Rea to go through.
A rotation later Rea was closing in on the leading Ducati’s but looked like he may of had a slight problem with his bike and ran wide at Goddard’s. Meanwhile whilst leading Davies had a small crash and lost the front at Goddards, but he was not hurt and managed to get back on his Panigale to rejoin the race in sixteenth with seventeen laps to go.
Rea was still experiencing issues with his ZX-10R and went wide again going into the home straight, losing valuable lap time, but he still remained third overall with five laps to go. Meanwhile Sykes was still edging ever closer to Giugliano and was chasing him down, and made a move that stuck on lap seventeen.
The fight was hotting up for fourth as it turned into a three-way battle between Ncky Hayden, Leon Camier and Lorenzo Savadori. But the former BSB champion, with two laps to go overtook the American rider at Schwantz and held on to take fourth at the flag followed by Hayden, Savadori and Torres.
Things were not getting better for Davies, as soon after he made a move on De Angelis, Abraham and Van Der Mark at Redgate he crashed moments later at Coppice, and this time was unable to remount. The Welshman was not the only rider to take a tumble on the circuit, as De Angelis crashed soon after Davies passed him with eight laps to go.
Honda Racing’s Michael Van Der Mark, Karel Abraham and Anthony West completed the top ten. Milwaukee BMW’s Josh Brookes did start off strongly, but must have made a mistake on track as he ended the race P14, with Schmitter the last of the points finishers.
