All posts tagged tom sykes
Aprilia, BMW and Kawasaki testing at Aragon
As we mentioned in our previous post Aprilia, BMW and Kawasaki factory teams with the addition of Pedercini Kawasaki are currently at the Motorland Aragon circuit for a private two day test that started yesterday to prepare for the next World Superbike round at Imola on April 1st.
Under sunny skies and with cool track temperatures Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes blitzed the field on Sunday, impressing the hell out of the rest of the riders with his speed, as did team mate Joan Lascorz who reportedly was the second fastest rider on track - no lap times were released.
Aprilia was out in full force with current points leader Max Biaggi, Eugene Laverty and test rider Alex Hoffmann. Aprilia brought to the Spanish circuit a new evo engine that they expecting to debut during the Monza round.
Laverty seems to have fully recovered from his pre-season hand injury and the mild concussion that he sustained in the first free practice he tweeted: “Difficult day one at the Aragon test. Quite a bit off the pace of the Kawasaki boys who are flying round here” and “Almost 210mph on the back straight yesterday. MotoGP won’t allow us to use the same track but at least we can beat their top speed” while Aprilia team mate Max Biaggi who is a newbie to Twitter wrote at the end of the day, “Good night everybody.Going to sleep. Today test Kawa was very fast,Good job!Tomorrow we’ll try to make better. Hope condition stay the same.”
The BMW factory team had Marco Melandri and Leon Haslam out on track with their test rider Steve Martin, and they are also testing a new engine, a swingarm and more electronics on their S100RRs. Melandri who took a 2nd place podium at Phillip Island tweeted, “Good test, but still struggle a lot..” while Haslam has to check out his fitness after riding the Australian round with a newly operated tibia and fractured bones in his heel and toe.
Leandro Mercado finally got a chance to ride his Pedericini Kawasaki bike. The Argentian rider missed the first round of the season after fracturing his radius bone during a motocross accident, while David Salom will ride today to test his left hand after re-fracturing his scaphoid in Australia.
Kawasaki WSBK team keeps fans in the loop with videos
Following the example of World Honda Superbike team, Kawasaki Racing Team has decided to keep fans in the loop with their own videos, and this is their excellent team footage from behind the scenes from round one at Phillip Island.
Tom Sykes was one of the fastest riders during pre-season testing, and in the excition season opener gave his team a fourth place in race one and third place in race two after enthusiastic battle with Jonathan Rea that went to the final corner and defending the position right to the finish line.
Team mate Joan Lascorz had more difficulties in both races, unable to find the right set-up in the first race which dropped him down to 15th and in race two he lost the front on his ZX-10R on lap 11 and crashed out.
Tom Sykes leads the field in QP2 at Phillip Island
Tom Sykes jumped to the top of the timesheets in QP2 at Phillip Island ahead of this afternoon’s first Superpole of 2012 World Superbike championship season.
The Kawasaki rider set the best lap of the 45 minute session in 1.31.323, which was enough to keep, not only former World champion Max Biaggi at bay, but also reigning World champion Carlos Checa, who took the third spot on the provisional grid.
Effenbert Liberty duo Jakub Smrz and Sylvain Guintoli were fourth and fifth respectively, followed by Leon Camier who qualified for Superpole in sixth, followed by debuting and impressive Red Devils Roma Ducati team and rider Niccolo Canepa who grabbed the seventh spot.
Continue reading: Tom Sykes leads the field in QP2 at Phillip Island
Tom Sykes takes over on day 2 at Phillip Island
Tom Sykes shone during last week’s private testing at Phillip Island and during yesterday’s day 1 ended up seventh and almost a second adrift, instead the Kawasaki rider heading the timesheets today taking over the top spot from Carlos Checa.
Posting 1.31.648 lap early in the morning session when the asphalt was slightly colder allowed Sykes to pip Checa, who has constantly dominated all the tests in Australia, even though it was by a mere 0.004s, which could make the Brit a real rival in this weekend’s opening round, especially if temperatures remain cooler.
Jakub Smrz was the third fastest rider overall with Effenbert Liberty Racing team’s Ducati ,ahead of Jonatha Rea who posted a best lap of 1.31.913 despite having binned his 2012 Honda during the morning session at the MG turn. Max Biaggi was fifth ahead of Marco Melandri. Davide Giugliano moved up the charts with his Althea Ducati to take seventh overall despite another crash today.
Continue reading: Tom Sykes takes over on day 2 at Phillip Island
Tom Sykes brings Kawasaki up to potential
The real surprise of these last three days of World Superbike private testing was Tom Sykes. The British rider matched reigning World Champion Carlos Checa pace to the tenth of a second, which bodes more than well for the upcoming official Infront test that takes place Monday and Tuesday when Pirelli will be bringing in the race tires the teams will be using in the opening round.
Sykes was particularly satisfied that the bike’s base settings, which he has been perfecting over a few winter tests sessions, worked at a warm Phillip Island with only minor tweaks and adjustments as the temperatures changed. Today was the hottest of the three, but track action was interrupted many times during this test in general, because of crashes and several forms of wildlife that strayed onto the track quite frequently.
While Joan Lascorz used the fact that this is an unofficial test to run two bikes, each with its own distinct set-up philosophy, in his efforts to find a final base setting to start the season with. He improved his best lap time today and jumped into the top five in the final combined time sheets.
Tom Sykes: “Day three went pretty well. We tried out a lot of things again, in the hot conditions this time. We had good consistency and found a bit of a better bike balance for me. Through all our tests we have explored a lot of areas, gathered a lot of information, but finally it looks like our base setting from winter testing is pretty good. This is the third or fourth race circuit, in a wide range of temperatures, that it has worked at. We did some fine-tuning and managed our lap times quite well. It is difficult to see exactly where our competitors are at in terms of set-up but ultimately we have had a successful test and have set ourselves up nicely for the official tests next week. Hopefully we will have two days of decent weather and that will prepare us for the beginning of the season.”
Joan Lascorz: “I have not decided my final settings and I need to test more at the sessions next week. We have two days to make a decision in which direction to go. I have two basic bike set-ups, both work well, but they are very different. One gives us a longer bike and one a shorter bike, so I need to make the decision which way to go. We only get to use the real race tyres at the official tests, not this test, to help me make the final decision. We have two more days on track next week and they will be very important.”
WSBK Phillip Island test: Tom Sykes and Carlos Checa divide top spot on day 1
Ten World Superbike teams and eighteen riders are taking part in a three day private at Phillip Island ahead of the the official test that takes place February 20th-21st, before the season opener that opens on February 26th in Australia.
Not taking part in this test are Honda’s Jonathan Rea and Hiroshi Aoyama, Red Devil Ducati’s Niccolo Canepa, ParkinGO Aprilia’s Chaz Davies, Grillini BMW’s Mark Aitchison and Pro Ride Honda’s Raffaele de Rosa, while wild-card David Johnson on the Rossair AEP BMW is present.
The first day, that saw cloudy weather with intermittent sunshine was characterized by a few falls, including Crescent Fixi Suzuki rider John Hopkins who had a speed crash at the Southern Loop and broke a bone in his right hand. The American rider is now returning to the States for further for a further check-up and his partecipation in the opening round is now seriously in doubt.
Reigning Superstock 1000 FIM Cup champion Davide Giugliano who switched to Superbikes with Althea Racing also crashed as did Jakub Smrz and a contact between Aprilia’s Max Biaggi and Effenbert Liberty’s Maxime Berger sent the Aprilia rider down.
Since there are no official lap times, we’re more or less relying on the unofficial ones recorded by the teams so there will probably be several discrepancies.
Continue reading: WSBK Phillip Island test: Tom Sykes and Carlos Checa divide top spot on day 1
Tom Sykes and Joan Lascorz conclude two day test at Almeria
Kawasaki’s World Superbike team which is now being run by Provec Motocard.com have started to prepare for the new racing season with a two day test at Almeria in Spain.
Sykes left with the best lap time of 1.34.6 seconds, while Lascorz took a 1.35.1. Overnight temperatures fell to near freezing point but track conditions once the sun had come up each day were such that the riders and technical staff had a great chance to work through the many set-up options on the latest race version of the Ninja ZX-10R.
The team will now take their optimum material and set-up data to the awesome Phillip Island circuit in Australia for two separate test sessions (and will be joined by other teams) before the opening race weekend of the season. The first of 14 rounds will take place there between 24 and 26 February.
Continue reading: Tom Sykes and Joan Lascorz conclude two day test at Almeria
Tom Sykes and Joan Lascorz talk about Valencia test
Kawasaki’s World Superbike team concluded a three-day test session at Valencia yesterday and Joan Lascorz and Tom Sykes were among the several Kawasaki riders present preparing for the upcoming 2012 season.
Both riders posted strong laps and Sykes, using race tyres, set a best lap of 1’33.1, which is a tenth or so faster than the best Superpole lap ever recorded at the former WSBK venue that was dropped from the calendar at the end of the 2010 season.
The team worked on suspension, linkages, electronics, chassis geometry and the latest ride-by-wire system under the watchful eye of several Japanese engineers confirming that Kawasaki is indeed taking a more active role in WSBK racing and in the team. Once the test ban (December 1st to January 15th) is lifted the team will head to the Almeria race track in Spain for further tests before moving to Australia for the first official 2012 test ahead of the first round of the 2012 season that starts February 26th at Phillip Island.
Tom Sykes: “The tests went well and we ended up doing a 1’33.1 lap time on a race tyre. We have worked through a lot of different things, we are working well in the garage and I am relaxed. It is no secret that when I’m relaxed I work my best. We have had some good weather - consistent weather - in Valencia and that made it better to work through all we needed to do. We have a new electronics package and found a better overall machine balance for me. We also went well at Aragon even though we only really had half a good day there, because of weather and some car tyre rubber laid on the track surface. Once the conditions improved it took us only four outings of four laps each to beat the kind of lap times I set at the race last summer. Right now we are on a package that we have not changed so much between the two tests. We have a fairly good base setting that works for race distance and, when we put new tyres in, for a fast lap time as well. I think we have come a long way even since the post-season Portimao test. The bike tells me what it is doing quite a lot better than before, and the improved feedback tells me when I am arriving at the limit.”
Joan Lascorz: “I am very happy the way the test went because I set good lap times and I was very happy with the performance of the bike and the team. We made a lot of changes to the bike, changed a lot of general settings and worked on the suspension. Some are now much different from last year. All the staff worked well together again. I think I learned most from this test in terms of finding out more about our latest machine settings and then finding a more consistent good pace. These things should allow us to challenge closer to the top in 2012. Tom was very fast and we both worked well with race tyres.”
Tom Sykes to stay with Kawasaki in 2012
Kawasaki has announced that their rider line-up will not change in 2012, thus confirming Tom Sykes and Joan Lascorz for the upcoming World Superbike championship.
While Lascorz was anticipated to remain with the Superbike team after Kawasaki decided to get more actively involved in the championship and decided to assign the factory effort to Spanish Provec Motocard.com run by Guim Roda and drop Paul Bird, so the British rider’s future was slightly less certain, but the negotiations now have confirmed a much rosier 2012 for Sykes.
“I’m very happy to be continuing with Kawasaki and the Ninja ZX-10R in 2012. I believe the bike has good potential and we saw some of that come through in 2011 with a race win in Germany and Superpole at Misano. These are the kind of results I am looking to achieve in the coming season on a regular basis and I really believe we can do this. I have a lot of confidence in Kawasaki and the team around me, so if we can improve a couple of points with the set-up of the bike on the track which I feel are restricting performance this would be a big step forward for us in the final results. I am looking forward to re-starting our test programme again very soon, ” said Sykes.
Tom Sykes tops QP2 at Imola with record breaking lap
The newly asphalted Imola track let times drop significantly from last year, and in this morning’s QP2 Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes not only topped the timesheet but also broke the previous circuit lap record that was set by Jonathan Rea just minutes earlier in the session.
The Kawasaki rider who took the Superpole last year at Imola, blazed through the Italian circuit stopping the clock with a stunning lap of 1.47.799. Jonathan Rea also was able to break the 1.48 barrier with his 1.47.973 which was just 0.174s adrift from Sykes.
Michel Fabrizio pipped Carlos Checa for third in his last flying lap, while Noriyuki Haga took fifth. Leon Haslam grabbed sixth, while the Yamaha factory team is struggling slighty as they usually do at Imola. Marco Melandri was seventh, while team mate Eugene Laverty qualified for the Superpole in 12th.
Coming in eighth was Jakub Smrz followed by lone Aprilia Alitalia rider Leon Camier, as Max Biaggi had to skip the rounde due to his injured foot. Camier was sandwiched between the other Effenbert Libery rider, Sylvain Guintoli.
CIV wildcard Althea rider Federico Sandi made the cut to this afternoon’s Superpole with his 11th place and 0.916s from the top of the chart. Also moving into the Superpole will be Troy Corser, Maxime Berger, Ayrton Badovini and another CIV wildcard, Alex Polita for Barni Racing team.
Continue reading: Tom Sykes tops QP2 at Imola with record breaking lap
Tom Sykes still in talks to retain Kawasaki ride
When it was announced on Sunday that Paul Bird had lost the Kawasaki factory contract for 2012, just after Tom Sykes scored his maiden World Superbike win at very wet Nurburgring, many were left wondering on what will happen to current factory riders Tom Sykes, Joan Lascorz and Chris Vermeulen.
According to Bird in his post race Nurburgring interview, Sykes was also issued his walking papers, but the English rider’s manager in a press release decided to clarify his client’s position, stating that discussions to remain with Kawasaki are still ongoing.
Sykes played a big part in the development and testing of the 2011 ZX-10R Superbike, while Lascorz and Vermeulen were sidelined recovering from their big 2010 injuries.
“In response to recent events, and as the sole appointed party responsible for negotiating Tom Sykes’ ongoing contracts, we can confirm the following:
“Tom remains a fully committed Paul Bird Motorsport (PBM) team rider and will continue to do so for the duration of his current contract. For the remainder of the season Tom’s primary focus is to produce the best possible results for PBM and Kawasaki, as his recent win at the Nurburgring would confirm. It is clear from Tom and also Kawasaki that there is a strong desire from both parties for there to be an ongoing relationship that can reap the full benefits of the work done to date. Discussions regarding this matter are in progress at this time.
“Once Tom’s plans have been finalised, these will be communicated via ourselves in the usual manner. In the meantime Tom will continue his role as a professional WSBK rider, doing his utmost to represent PBM and their associated sponsors, Kawasaki, and his own personal sponsors in the best possible way at all times.”
Source | crash.net
Tom Sykes wins red flagged race 2 at Nurburgring
Race 2 at Nurburgring was so conditioned by the weather that you were left wondering why the Race Direction didn’t decide to red flag it much sooner, taking into consideration the riders safety, instead of waiting for usual three fourths of the race to be over before putting a halt to the whole thing.
The Superbike riders rode in horrendous conditions, pouring rain, the track unable to drain the copious amounts of water falling and almost zero visibility and only the wet weather specialists were able to make something of it and even they signaled for the race to end as the riders began dropping like flies under the intense showers.
In this atrocious situation, it was Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes who took his first maiden win in WSBK’s, inheriting the spot after Noriyuki Haga who had lead the entire race from the beginning and had built up an impressive advantage of over ten seconds before sliding out just two laps before the race was finally stopped.
Effenbert-Liberty Ducati duo Sylvain Guintoli and Jakub Smrz completed the podium, and suprisingly Jonathan Rea came in fourth despite a high speed crash, limping across the finish line.
Eugene Laverty took fifth after an intense and almost race long battle with team mate Marco Melandri. Following the Yamaha duo was BMW Italia’s Ayrton Badovini, while Carlos Checa had a horrible start and ended up in 12th, however with all the crashes from riders in front of him he salvaged a very safe 8th spot. Leon Haslam also crashed out, but managed to rejoin and finish in 9th ahead of Maxime Berger.
Continue reading: Tom Sykes wins red flagged race 2 at Nurburgring
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