Kawi WSBK - Miller Park.

[MadKaw]

Sykes Out To Continue Rich Seam Of Form
WSBK, Miller Motorsport Park, USA, 21 May 2012
Tom Sykes is now within five points of the championship leader as the Superbike World Championship heads to the Miller Motorsports Park round, with Tom once more teamed up with young rider Loris Baz. Sykes has only been off the podium three times so far this season, has already scored a race win at Monza and is 15.5 points ahead of the third place rider. Sykes has also been almost peerless in Superpole. He has won four of the five Superpole contests in 2012 so far and only narrowly missed out on another at Monza.

The rolling result of the hard work put in on track and behind the scenes by all in the Kawasaki Racing Team set-up has meant that irrespective of the type of circuit Sykes and his Ninja ZX-10R have encountered, good results have generally been secured on raceday and this has built up a large degree of combined confidence for the rest of the season.

Sykes’ previous SBK record at Miller, both as a Kawasaki rider and when riding for another manufacturer in his first SBK season, is something of a mixed bag. He has an MMP best of sixth in race one last year, but both Tom and his squad will be aiming to be in the front-running mix at the popular American circuit.

Once more riding in place of Tom’s injured 2012 team-mate Joan Lascorz, Frenchman Loris Baz will meet the American circuit near Salt Lake City for the first time this weekend, in only his second outing in the factory SBK team.

Baz, still only 19-years-old, finished inside the top ten at the previous Donington round and impressed all with his positive attitude and ability to pick up pace as the weekend went on. He was eighth in race two and is out to score more points at Miller.

The race at MMP takes place on Monday 28th May, not the more traditional Sunday of every other round, as the event is held over the American Memorial Day Holiday weekend. Track action starts on Saturday 26th, Superpole is on Sunday 27th and raceday – for the Superbike class only at this round – is on Monday 28th.

Tom Sykes: “I am really looking forward to going to Miller because Salt Lake is a beautiful part of the world, so the atmosphere and scene is set for me already. Miller has not been a spectacular venue for me in the past but it has also not been too bad. This year, with the Ninja ZX-10R the way it is, we have come a long way with the bike and I am hoping we can go there and start afresh. I hope we will be able to compete and we have been fairly consistent this year. Now we are only five points off the lead, which is really promising. There is a bit of pressure going into Salt Lake, just to keep the performance up, but the only pressure is from myself. I do not want to let myself down. Last time out Donington was a little bit of a challenge for us so it was good to come away with a pole position and two third places. My main goal is, like always, to get two top four or top five positions and keep those points coming in.”

Loris Baz: “I do not feel any pressure or have any specific objective for Miller so I will go there just the same as in Donington. I do not know the track there but I do not see that as a very big problem. I will just enjoy it and we will see what happens. If I can do what I did at Donington, scoring points and being less than a second per lap from the first riders, then that would be perfect. I will just be learning the bike and going step-by-step again. Maybe we will try some new things with the bike settings at Miller, simply because I am really tall, so I have to sit quite far back on the bike. Because of that the geometry of the bike changes a little. Nothing big to try because the base setting of the bike is already really good. I have a good feeling with my crew chief Pere Riba and all the mechanics and for a first race together at Donington I think we all worked together very well.”

[MadKaw]

Front Row Start For Sykes At MMP
WSBK, Miller Motorsport Park, USA, 28 May 2012
Tom Sykes and his Kawasaki Racing Team crew overcame some early set-up issues at Miller Motorsports Park to take a front row start in third place after Superpole. Young rider Loris Baz qualified 17th. Sykes had taken four pole positions in 2012 prior to Miller but did not look set to secure a fifth after he found difficulties in some sectors at what is a unique circuit on the calendar, where some blind turns are initiated with a partially open throttle.

With one main practice session undertaken in wet conditions and a track surface which appears to be bumpier and less consistent than last year, Sykes and his team made a late change to his Ninja ZX-10R’s chassis set-up and he found an immediate improvement in pace, which they carried all the way through the three Superpole sessions, heading up all but two of his 23 rivals at this particular event.

Tom hopes to be able to translate that qualifying improvement into a race set-up for Monday’s two 21-lap SBK events and add to his current podium tally of six, which includes a race win at Monza.

Loris Baz found his first experience of riding on the 4.907km circuit near Salt Lake City an enjoyable and exciting one and he came close to qualifying inside the top 16 and progressing in Superpole. He starts 17th on the grid and will look for improvements at certain points of the circuit before facing his two SBK races on Monday.

David Salom and Leandro Mercado, from the Team Perdercini Kawasaki squad, qualified 19th and 22nd respectively.

Tom Sykes: “I’m pleasantly surprised to be on the front row because we have been struggling for a time here at Miller. Once again the guys have done a great job because we changed something for Superpole, to try and make something happen, and fair play to the Kawasaki Racing Team technical staff because even on the first lap on a race tyre I knew we had a lot better package. About 15 or 20 minutes before Superpole we made quite a step with spring balance and that has put us very close to where we wanted to be. The lads have never stopped working. I have been a little bit difficult to deal with because I want to stay at the front, so I was getting frustrated. That makes it nice for me to see how well they all worked to make improvements. I feel a lot more confident going into tomorrow’s races now. We have kept up our good record from qualifying this year. Starting races from the front row is quite crucial so I am very happy to be here and hope to have two good races.”

Loris Baz: “When I walked the track for the first time it looked really good for me because there was not so many stop and go areas. We can see on the data that there are only two corners that are like that and those where the places I lost most time. For the moment my style is not OK for these corners, but I am fast in the first part of the track. The layout is difficult but it is really nice. I missed Superpole for next to nothing, about 0.14 seconds, so we are closer and closer to the top. We lost one practice session to the rain so I have had only three sessions in the dry and I was only 0.8 from Tom in qualifying, which is much better than Donington. We still have a problem in turn eight where it is really bumpy but if we can sort that we should be cool for the race.”

[MadKaw]

Two Good Points Scores Keep Sykes Close To The Championship Lead
WSBK, Miller Motorsport Park, USA, 29 May 2012
Kawasaki Racing Team rider Tom Sykes scored eighth and fifth place finishes today in the USA and in doing so went equal second in the table. His team-mate Loris Baz was also in the points twice. Having qualified third on the grid, despite struggling for a time to match his usual practice excellence at a circuit that proved challenging for man and machine, Sykes was unable to overcome a less than ideal race set-up in the first race, which went to a full 21-lap distance. He led for the first four laps but eventually dropped back as he was unable to make corner entries as fast as many of his rivals. He finished eighth.

Race two was started then stopped after three laps when another rider’s machine hit the kerbstones and in the resultant crash spilt significant quantities of oil on the track surface, causing a long delay to the eventual 18-lap restart. Tom was second off the grid for that race but he was forced back to fifth and had to battle hard to the end with Eugene Laverty to keep his fifth place.

Loris Baz, being eased into his relatively new role as replacement rider for the injured Joan Lascorz, rode sensibly to take a point for 15th in race one and go one place better in race two. He had been 17th in qualifying.

In the championship Max Biaggi leads with 160.5 points, Marco Melandri and Sykes share 142.5 and Baz’s three points in America put him 20th in the rankings, with 11 points in total.

In the Team Pedercini Kawasaki squad Leandro Mercado and David Salom both no scored in race one, then Mercado was 17th in race two, while Salom once more entered the pits to retire.

Next round, when the Supersport World Championship riders join the party again, will be at Misano in two weeks’ time.

Tom Sykes: “We were much better in race two. We made a bit of a change in set-up, three changes really, and I was able to be a bit more competitive. In the early laps I got behind Melandri and felt really good but unfortunately Davies came past and really upset my rhythm. It made it difficult for me to do what I needed to do, so my pace slowed. I just missed that slipstream from Melandri. In race one I was missing some front traction so I was not able to get the bike into the corners very well and obviously that affected my mid-corner and exit speed. You cannot give anything away to these boys but unfortunately this weekend it looks like we did for a while. We cannot get carried away with any thoughts like that because we are still second equal on points in the championship despite having a disappointing weekend by recent standards. We have got some better tracks coming up and I am looking forward to getting there. It is just hard for me to sit in my chair and debrief when some of the others are on the podium spraying champagne. I have got the taste for it now! On balance the guys in our team have done a great job again at this difficult track and in race two we were able to make changes that worked out quite well.”

Loris Baz: “Two races in the points was good but I wanted a bit more! The team wants me to keep getting used to the bike and they guys have told me not to risk a crash. In the first race I had good lap times and I finished ten seconds from Tom Sykes, which was really good. The second race was also going well but I could not follow Fabrizio, as he was a bit too fast. I was with Badovini through almost all the race. I was waiting to pass him and I think I passed him four times in the last two laps, a big battle but I could hear all the guys in the team in my head saying not to crash, so he finally passed me back. We scored points again and we are getting a good setting for me, and every session the bike is getting better.”