Tom Sykes was expected to be one of the leading challengers in the 2013 World Supebike championship, but after two rounds the Kawasaki rider finds himself sixth in the standings.
Phillip Island which isn’t historically Kawasaki’s best track saw Sykes riding injured and take two fifth places and at Aragon- which is Kawasaki’s designated test track – saw the British rider take his first pole position, but he then suffered a DNF in race one due to a technical issue and 3rd place.
At the Circuit van Drenthe, Assen for the third round of the 2013 championship season, Sykes hopes to change this trend and take his first victory of the season and have better luck than last year when he suffered a technical issue on his ZX-10R in race 1 and was able to only finish 6th in race 2.
Tom Sykes: “I am looking forward to racing at Assen and it is a circuit that the Ninja ZX-10R has gone well at in the past.
I will enjoy getting on the bike again.
One of the reasons that I am looking forward to this weekend so much is that there are quite a few people from the KME headquarters in the Netherlands coming to Assen.
This is the first circuit we have gone to this year without having had a test there first.
We know the bike well now and in these circumstances we simply focus on setting it up for the two races on Sunday and we don’t spend a lot of time fine tuning and trying many different things.
Assen is a good track to ride at and it’s a circuit that has changed a lot over the years.
I did not get the chance to ride the longer version they used in previous eras of SBK, with the long loop at the start, but I would have liked to.
Only the slow first section is really different from the rest of the current layout, which is still unique in some ways.
”Loris Baz is going to Assen on a high.
The Kawasaki rider who is currently 8th in standings, helped the Kawasaki SRC endurance team, along with Gregory Leblanc and Jeremy Guarnoni, score the team’s first victory in last weekend’s Bol d’Or 24 hour endurance race at Magny Cours.
This will be Baz’ first time at Assen riding for KRT.
“After a 24-Hour race they say you maybe need a week off to feel OK.
I knew April would be a hard month for me from the beginning but I think my head is pushing my body because I feel fresh! I do not feel like I have just done a 24-hour race.
I am really looking forward to Assen and I am already thinking about this event and concentrating on it.
Even on the night after the Bol d’Or I was doing some laps of Assen in my head, as the specifications of the SBK bike and Endurance bikes are not the same.
I do not want to even take one free session to feel just OK on the KRT bike; I want to work at a good level from the beginning.
I am going to rest for a couple of day now and I am sure I will be 100% ready for the Assen race.
I think it will be a really good one for us because I like the track and I think the bike will work really well there.
Hopefully we can have nice weather to let us continue our good work and I have been speaking with my crew chief Pere Riba already about how we can make our race pace even better than it was in Motorland.
I am looking forward to working again with the team at Assen, ” said Baz.