Tom Sykes and Loris Baz were in the leading mix on their Kawasaki Racing Team Ninja ZX-10R machines at the Spanish round of the SBK Championship with Sykes taking his first podium finish of the year.

Now largely recovered form his recent wrist injury Sykes was looking good for a potential race win on race one when a technical issue intervened and he had to pull out of the race on lap six. He made up for this disappointment in race two when he secured a fine third place finish, seven seconds from the winner Chaz Davies and well clear of the fourth placed rider.

Baz had an eventful raceday, dropping to ninth on lap one of race one, then climbing back to finish fifth, his best finish of the short season so far. In race two he was made to make his start from pitlane after two delays to the planned start and he had to fight even harder to get back to the top points positions. He ran off the track at one point but recovered to post a sixth place finish.

Superpole winner Sykes is now sixth overall in the standings on 38 points, with Baz eighth on 31.

Kawasaki Pedercini Team competitor Alex Lundh retired from race one but finished 13th in race two. Federico Sandi (Kawasaki Team Pedercini) was 12th in race one then retired in race two.

Tom Sykes:

“Scoring a podium in race two was not a perfect way to end race weekend but it was certainly an acceptable way. It would have been good to finish race one as well just so that I could have collected a bit more information to take into race two, but I am not making excuses - the riders ahead of me in race two rode fantastically well. We are now moving onto circuits where we are a little bit stronger than here. I am also riding uninjured now and Kawasaki has been working really hard so let’s see what Assen can bring next time out.”


Loris Baz:

“Race one was good but I missed the start a little and I think if I made a better start I could have been with some of the guys up front. I had to fight to pass other riders and we knew that race distance was going to be hard. We did a big step in setting a fast lap time in testing and I think we can fight for the top four or five places that way, but we maybe still need to find some more for full race distance. But I was happy finishing fifth in the first race, although I would have been P6 without another rider stopping. Race one showed the hard work we have done is paying off. Race two I went on the grid then they delayed the race so I stopped my engine because normally that is what we do in that situation. They said I could not do that, so I had to start from pitlane with Jules Cluzel. I am not sure if I could have got higher than P6 in the final result if I started like normal but at least I would have been able to see how long I could have run with some other guys. We had two good points scoring finishes in dry conditions so I am happy.”

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