Tom Sykes has labelled World Superbikes‘ one–bike rule ‘an absolute disaster’ after an engine failure early in second practice robbed him of a session of running.
The Yorkshireman had gone to the top of the second practice timesheets and bettered his time from the first session with a 1m57.985s in the opening minutes when the engine in his Kawasaki expired.
Twitter: DRAMA for ＠TheRealTomSykes during #WorldSBK FP2
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The team were forced to change the engine, meaning Sykes was unable to carry out any race simulations ahead of Friday’s 17–lap opening encounter at the Losail Circuit.
Sykes feels the one–bike rule – which acts as a cost–cutting measure – negatively impacts the show, and does not think it is fair that a rider should be ‘penalised’ for an issue not in their control.
“We were hoping to fine-tune the Kawasaki ZX–10RR for tomorrow’s race, but unfortunately we had a slight technical setback,” said Sykes.
“The one–bike rule is an absolute disaster. It is a shame because I feel it spoils the show.
“When you are watching MotoGP and one of those top guys has an issue, it’s nice to seen them get back to the pits and continue the session.
“But, as it happens, here in WorldSBK when you have this misfortune you are penalised for it.
“It is a hard one to take when you are fighting for runner–up spot in the world championship.”
Sykes is currently level on points with Ducati’s Chaz Davies in their battle for second in the standings, who ended Thursday’s running fourth overall and pleased with the performance of his Panigale.
“We’re sticking to the plan, working on the set–up with a focus on tyre options, which we took to race distance,” said Davies.
“We manage to be pretty consistent, which is the most important thing ahead of the races, but we still miss something with fresh tyres, especially in the first couple of sectors.
“We made some changes that turned out to be positive, we just didn’t have enough time to try one final step before doing the time attack.”
