Cookie Consent by Free Privacy Policy website Tom Sykes and his Kawasaki take Superpole®, new track record and Race 1 in WorldSBK; with the asphalt at 30°C, all the riders choose Pirelli soft solutions for the rear
may 27, 2017 - Pirelli

Tom Sykes and his Kawasaki take Superpole®, new track record and Race 1 in WorldSBK; with the asphalt at 30°C, all the riders choose Pirelli soft solutions for the rear

Behind the 2013 World Champion, who dedicates his ninth consecutive win at Donington Park to Nicky Hayden, is wild card Leon Haslam with an outstanding second place and the bottom step of the podium for Alex Lowes on Yamaha; Kenan Sofuoglu takes Superpole® for the WorldSSP race tomorrow

Castle Donington (United Kingdom), 27 May 2017Race 1 of the MOTUL FIM World Superbike Championship just ended at the Donington Park circuit in the United Kingdom with the first win of the season for Kawasaki rider Tom Sykes who dedicated this win to recently deceased American rider, Nicky Hayden.
 
With this result, the Kawasaki Racing Team Brit also broke various records. In fact, he is now the most victorious rider on this circuit, having taken nine consecutive wins and he also won Superpole® with a time of 1’26.641 which breaks the track record he set last year by more than one tenth of a second. With five poles, this makes him the rider to have won Superpole® the most times ever on the Donington Park circuit. With this pole, the Brit now boasts forty Superpole® wins since participating in the factory derivatives World Championship.
 
As for the tyres used for this first race of the weekend, with asphalt temperatures at around 30°C, all the riders chose one of the two available soft solutions for the rear. In particular, the standard SC0 tyre was the most popular as opposed to the V0602 SC0 development solution, although the latter was chosen by the Kawasaki factory riders, as well as by Alex Lowes and Marco Melandri, just to name a few.
 
Noteworthy was Leon Haslam's outstanding performance. Returning to the World Superbike Championship after a two year absence in a wild card slot astride the Team Puccetti Kawasaki, he finished on the second step of the podium. Haslam, who currently races in the British Superbike Championship, compared with the other wild cards who participate in the championship, prepared for Donington Park already quite familiar with Pirelli tyres and this probably helped him to achieve a good feeling with the bike more quickly, allowing him to be competitive straight away. In fact, Pirelli's development work in the MOTUL FIM World Superbike Championship go hand in hand and alongside the development done in the various national championships where the brand with the long "P" participates, first and foremost in BSB where they have been sole supplier since 2008.
 
It was hard luck, on the other hand for Jonathan Rea who, just two laps from the chequered flag, had a problem with the rear tyre. On this issue, Giorgio Barbier, Pirelli Moto Sports Activities Director, specified: “At the moment we are unable to make an accurate statement on what happened to Jonathan Rea's rear tyre. As soon as the race ended, we got to work immediately along with team Kawasaki analysing the data, especially the pressure data. For now, we can only say that the tyre has a cut on the side that is a few centimetres long, but we do not know if this cut is what cause the rapid deflation of the tyre and consequently Rea's crash or if it is a consequence or a result of the crash, perhaps due to contact with the bike fairings. In the coming hours, we will conduct further checks and, if necessary, we will take the tyre to our laboratories for a more in depth analysis.”
 
Before the start of Race 1, the MOTUL FIM World Superbike Championship and the entire motorcycling community paid tribute to Nicky Hayden with a moment of silence on the starting grid.
At the start it was Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team) getting off the line well, but he was overtaken as early as the second corner by Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati). Defending World Champion Jonathan Rea was in third place ahead of wild card Leon Haslam (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing).
During the second lap, Rea got by Tom Sykes who was also passed shortly thereafter by Haslam, falling back to fourth place.
In the eighth lap it was Chaz Davies who lost ground, relegated to seventeenth place and relinquishing the race lead to Jonathan Rea. He was followed by his teammate and Leon Haslam, lying third.
On the fourteenth lap, Sykes overtook Rea to move momentarily into the lead, but the Championship leader took it back straight away. In the last quarter of the race, it was a battle for the top step of the podium between the two Kawasaki factory riders, whereas Leon Haslam managed his third place position with an advantage of almost five seconds ahead of Marco Melandri.
However, the pole man was having none of it and during the nineteenth lap he moved into the lead once again with a clean pass on his teammate.
There was a dramatic turn of events in the twenty-first lap when Jonathan Rea was thrown from his bike, sliding disastrously into the gravel and out of the race.
The win, therefore, went to Sykes who finished ahead of Haslam and Alex Lowes who managed to snatch third place from Marco Melandri on the final turn.
 
WorldSBK Race 1 standings:
 
1) T. Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team)
2) L. Haslam (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing)
3) A. Lowes (Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team)
4) M. Melandri (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati)
5) M. Van Der Mark (Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team)
6) L. Camier (MV Agusta Reparto Corse)
7) L. Mercado (IODARacing)
8) C. Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati)
9) J. Torres (Althea BMW Racing Team)
10) X. Forés (BARNI Racing Team)
11) R. Ramos (Team Kawasaki GoEleven)
12) L. Savadori (Milwaukee Aprilia)
13) E. Laverty (Milwaukee Aprilia)
14) R. Krummenacher (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing)
15) R. De Rosa (Althea BMW Racing Team)
16) A. Badovini (Grillini Racing Team)
17) A. De Angelis (Pedercini Racing SC-Project)
18) O. Jezek (Grillini Racing Team)
RT) J. Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team)
RT) S. Bradl (Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team)
RT) R. Russo (Guandalini Racing)
RT) J. Dixon (Royal Air Force Reg. & Res. Kawasaki)
 
 
The Pirelli solutions chosen by the WorldSBK riders for Race 1:
 
After the brief rain shower that fell on the circuit in the third qualifying session, the sun came back out over the Donington Park track and, thanks in part to the wind, for Superpole® the track was already dry. This obviously allowed the riders to choose slick solutions for Race 1 without any problems.
In particular, on the rear all the riders used soft solutions, partly thanks to the fact that the asphalt temperature was around 30°C. In particular, the standard SC0 (option B) proved to be the most popular solution, chosen by no less than fifteen out of the twenty-two riders on the grid. Seven riders, including Sykes, Rea, Lowes, Melandri, Haslam and Van Der Mark, opted instead for the V0602 SC0 development solution (option A).
As for the available options for the front, the prevalent choices on the grid were the V0952 SC1 development solution (option B) with ten riders choosing it and the standard SC2 (option D) chosen by eight riders.
 
 
Pirelli statistics for WorldSBK Race 1:
 
• Winner of the PIRELLI BEST LAP AWARD: Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team),in 1'27.655 at the 7th lap
 
• Most used front solution: development SC1 V0952 (10 out of 22 riders)
 
• Most used rear solution: standard SC0 (15 out of 22 riders)
 
• Maximum race speed reached by Pirelli DIABLO™ Superbike tyres: 273.4 km/h, achieved by Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) in the 12th lap
 
• Number of solutions (dry, intermediate and wet) for the Superbike class: 7 front and 7 rear
 
Number of tyres available for each WorldSBK rider: 83, including 45 front and 38 rear
 
• Air temperature: 18° C
 
• Asphalt temperature: 30° C

Related news

september 30, 2023
september 25, 2023
september 24, 2023

Manufacturers’ title in WorldSBK and riders’ World title in WorldSSP; victory for Gennai in 300 and the season is still open. Outs...

In the penultimate round of the FIM Superbike World Championship, Pirelli brings the complete front range while for the rear it re...

With the SCX rear and SC1 front, the Ducati rider wins both the Superpole Race and Race 2 and widens the gap in the championship s...