WSB: Sykes scorches to dominant race two win in Assen

Tom Sykes returned to the top step to take his first race victory since Misano last year with a dominant ride in Sunday’s second race at the TT Circuit Assen.

After a late race surge on Saturday, Sykes knew he had the pace should he get a strong start and with the reverse grid format gifting him pole position for race two he chose not to waste it.

Shooting off from the early stages, Sykes was able to build a 5.445 second lead over team-mate Jonathan Rea to take a commanding win and prevent his team-mate and rival from taking one step further to the all-time WorldSBK win record.

Michael van der Mark crossed the line third, some 7.5 seconds behind Sykes, to take a double podium in front of his home crowd.
Xavi Fores was fourth on the Barni Ducati ahead of factory rival Chaz Davies while Jordi Torres completed the top six for MV Agusta Reparto Corse.

Still suffering huge instability problems with his Panigale, Marco Melandri would only be able to cross the line seventh ahead of Loris Baz, Toprak Razgatlioglu and the Milwaukee Aprilia of Lorenzo Savadori.

It was another tough race for Alex Lowes after a slip off at turn 17. Re-mounting, he scored just two points as he crossed the line 14^th.

After four rounds, Rea leads Chaz Davies in the standings by a significant 30 points with Melandri a further 14 points back in third.