Sykes doubles up at Donington

Tom Sykes (KRT) put on his best weekend of the year to record his second win of the day at home in Donington Park, running out 9.772 seconds ahead of his team-mate Jonathan Rea (KRT). Rea had almost crashed at Coppice early in the race and had to make a calm and assured fight back through most of the top riders to record his 12^th straight podium of the year.

Knocking out low 1’28 laps from almost start to finish, Sykes was 3.984 seconds clear of Leon Haslam (Aprilia Racing Red Devils) on lap nine, and built on his advantage all the way to the end of a 23 lap race. He also set a new lap record on lap two, in clean air, with a 1’27.640.

A huge crash from Nico Terol came close to stopping the race as the Althea Racing Ducati rider fell at Coppice corner, with his bike only just bouncing off track to safety.

Sykes has now won all the last six WSB races at Donington on a weekend that he turned a corner in his overall competitiveness under the new technical rules for 2015.

Chaz Davies and Davide Giugliano from the Aruba.it Racing – Ducati WSB squad passed Haslam in the latter stages to see the second race podium end up a mirror image of the first.

Haslam fought back and retook a popular fourth place, relegating Giugliano to fifth, but being unable to reach Davies.

Alex Lowes (Voltcom Crescent Suzuki) had a safe top six, but the battle between Sylvain Guintoli (Pata Honda WSB) and Jordi Torres (Aprilia Racing Team – Red Devils) went all the way to the wire, with Torres ending up on top, in seventh place.

Ayrton Badovini (BMW Motorrad Italia SBK Team) got home in ninth and tenth position went to Matteo Baiocco (Althea Racing Ducati) was tenth.

Leon Camier crashed from an early top six placing and on his MV Agusta Reparto Corse F4 and had to retire.