Kawasaki Racing Team’s Tom Sykes endured a difficult first day of track action at Magny-Cours ahead of this weekend’s 11th round of the 2016 WorldSBK season.
The Yorkshireman lost most of the afternoon free practice session due to a reoccurring rear brake issue, affecting him 10 minutes into FP2 and again not long after he had returned to track.
The missed track time may prove troublesome tomorrow too, as FP1 saw Sykes only fourth on the time sheets and half a second off the pace. He’d hoped to use FP2 to improve the bike further from the morning, though nonetheless managed third on the afternoon time sheets with a lap of 1m38.068s and says that he is optimistic of his chances for both races.
Sykes comes into the French WorldSBK round looking to reignite his championship fight after dropping 47 points adrift of teammate and standings leader Jonathan Rea at the end of the German round two weeks ago.
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Seems @TheRealTomSykes is suffering with bike issues at the start of #FrenchWorldSBK FP2 https://t.co/yxqe9ybl2X (@WorldSBK)
Looking ahead to tomorrow, rain is forecast for much of the day and this has been a problem area for Sykes this season. However, the 2013 World Champion claims that he and his Kawasaki team have ‘quite a good plan’ should the heavens open, making him less apprehensive about the conditions.
“It’s a big shame, as we had some technical issues with the rear brake. That kept sticking so unfortunately I only got a handful of laps. This morning I had quite a good feeling with the bike. We needed to make some improvements based on this morning and it’s unfortunate that we never got to do that this afternoon,” Sykes said.
“I feel like we are ready to race, we have the potential to make a good race, so this is positive but the negative is that we lost quite a lot of time. Overall, the big picture is that we are ready but we definitely need to find the cause of this problem because it could be a big problem in the race and also very dangerous.
“We’ve got some wet weather coming tomorrow now, obviously we have struggled in the wet but we have quite a good plan. So, sure, I don’t want the wet weather to arrive but if it does it’s also quite exciting.”
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