Tom Sykes takes impressive victory in race 1 at Portimao and reopens championship fight

with Twowheelsblog

A crash by Marco Melandri (who will not take part in race 2 after suffering a suspected kidney injury) in the opening stages, a red flag due to oil on the track, an extremely important victory after the interruption, has opened up Tom Sykes chances even further in the World Superbike title fight, as points leader Max Biaggi finished off the podium in fourth.

Today’s race 1 at Portimao was highly eventful and dramatic, not only because the track was wet and treacherous and then began to slowly dry, but because the championship lost one of its three contenders when Melandri on lap three, threw some caution to the wind and decided to immediately repass Max Biaggi who had just overtook him at turn 11. The BMW rider ended up sliding out and taking with him two riders, Davide Giugliano and future BMW team mate Chaz Davies in the process.

On the start of the sixth lap the race was being lead by Max Biaggi who had just taken the lead from Eugene Laverty at the end of the straight when the Irishman indicated with a very obvious gesture of his right foot that his team mate should pass him. Laverty immediately began to lose contact as both Jonathan Rea and Carlos Checa passed him in one fall swoop, while Tom Sykes was 7th after struggling with Sylvain Guintoli, and an impressive Brett McCormick and a very wrong set-up, but then Norino Brignola who was 9th, crashed out with his satellite Grillin BMW leaving oil on the track surface which prompted the red flag.

The new start was 16 laps with the starting grid as the previous lap before the red flag - Laverty, Biaggi, Rea and Checa on the front row with Guintoli, McCormick, Sykes (whose mechanics had plenty of time to change his set-up) and Leon Camier on the second.

When the lights went out Max Biaggi took the holeshot ahead of Rea and Laverty while Tom Sykes put in a hard pass on the Aprilia rider at turn 3 and gained the third spot and on the straigh then passed Rea and began tailing the Roman Emperor never letting him out of his sights, while Leon Haslam was given a ride through penalty for a jump start which further confirmed another bad day for BMW.

Sykes was all over Biaggi on the next lap and at the beginning of third put a ‘Por Fuera’ pass on the Italian to take the lead, with Biaggi following and slightly more distant Guintoli, Rea, and an aggressive McCormick in front of Carlos Checa. On the fifth lap it began to rain again and Max Biaggi ran off track letting Sylvain Guintoli through and one lap later Carlos Checa having disposed of the Effenbert Liberty rider passed Biaggi who was fastly fading and had his hands full with McCormick who passed him but the Roman Emperor repassed him immediately and struggled to hold him back, watching title rival Sykes disapper in the distance, with Carlos Checa chasing him.

Lap after lap the soon-to-be ex reigning World Champion started to break Sykes advantage and with just three laps to go caught the Kawasaki rider who wouldn’t let him through no matter what the Spaniard tried and they would cross over the finish line with Sykes taking his third victory of the season with Carlos Checa in second and Sylvain Guintoli the third spot on the podium for Pata’s penultimate round in Superbikes.

While Biaggi finished fourth followed by a suprising Brett McCormick, Jonathan Rea, Loris Baz and BMW Motorrad Italia’s Ayrton Badovini and Michel Fabrizio closed out the top ten.

WSBK Portimao Race 1 Results:

01- Tom Sykes – Kawasaki Racing Team – Kawasaki ZX-10R – 16 lap in 31’42.011
02- Carlos Checa – Althea Racing – Ducati 1198 – + 0.300
03- Sylvain Guintoli – PATA Racing Team – Ducati 1198 – + 2.732
04- Max Biaggi – Aprilia Racing Team – Aprilia RSV4 Factory – + 11.564
05- Brett McCormick – Team Effenbert Liberty Racing – Ducati 1198 – + 11.771
06- Jonathan Rea – Honda World Superbike Team – Honda CBR 1000RR – + 11.792
07- Loris Baz – Kawasaki Racing Team – Kawasaki ZX-10R – + 28.693
08- Hiroshi Aoyama – Honda World Superbike Team – Honda CBR 1000RR – + 29.581
09- Ayrton Badovini – BMW Motorrad Italia GoldBet – BMW S1000RR – + 31.507
10- Michel Fabrizio – BMW Motorrad Italia GoldBet – BMW S1000RR – + 31.587