The sun was shining at Assen for the first race of today’s double header and Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes dominated the race from lights-to-flag with a punishing ryhthm to take his first victory of the 2013 season.
After taking yesterday’s pole position, the British rider escaped after the second turn leaving the rest of the field the crumbs.
Sykes race pace was not only highly impressive, but also embarrassing, as he almost never lapped over the 1.
37 barrier giving everyone a least a half a second on he each lap, except towards the end of the race, when he started cruising and he would win with almost a nine second margin.
If for Sykes it was a triumphant solitary win, the battle for the two remaining podiums went to the wire, between Jonathan Rea and Sylvain Guintoli, which would see the Northern Irishman win over Guintoli to take the second spot by a mere 0.
006s.
For the Pata Honda rider is was a matter of honor on his home circuit and he put in a couple of some stunning, hair raising overtakes on both Guintoli and Laverty, chosing the Hoge Heide chicane as his favorite passing point and his aggressive overtake on the final lap paid off as he raced to the finish line side by side with the French rider.
Eugene Laverty tried his best, but in the final corners he couldn’t keep the pace of the two in front of him and he finished fourth.
Loris Baz had showed the pace to keep with two of the podium finishers, but he had a bad start and had to fight through the field and ended up battling with Davide Giugliano for the fifth position.
Chaz Davies took a miraclous seventh spot.
Davies crashed this morning during the warm-up session destroying his bike, breaking the frame and damaging the engine of his BMW.
His team had to work feverishly to put together the rolling chassis and when it seemed that they had made it as the pitlane opened, his bike didn’t work.
Other feverish moments of work and the team was able to get the bike to work, but Davies was forced to line up at the back of the grid.
A good start put the Welshman up to the outside of the top ten and then he sliced through the field to gain the seventh spot, but he ran out of speed and tires after the enormous effort, but brought home his points, something that team mate Marco Melandri couldn’t do.
During the sighting lap, Melandri’s BMW suffered a mechanical issue – the chain broke – leaving the Italian angrily pushing his bike through the gravel and towards to the pitlane.
Fixi Crescent Suzuki’s Jules Cluzel and Leon Camier were 8th and 9th respectively, with a recovering Camier who didns’t know if he could even last the race distance and starting in 17th and even beating Carlos Checa who closed out the top ten with Ducati 1199 Panigale.
If Assen was to be more Ducati friendly because the lack of long straights, so far it hasn’t proved true, as Checa finished more that 35 seconds from an untouchable Sykes.
2013 WSBK Assen Race 1 Results:01- Tom Sykes – Kawasaki Racing Team – Kawasaki ZX-10R – 22 laps in 35’35.
042 02- Jonathan Rea – Pata Honda World Superbike Team – Honda CBR 1000RR – + 8.
786 03- Sylvain Guintoli – Aprilia Racing Team – Aprilia RSV4 Factory – + 8.
792 04- Eugene Laverty – Aprilia Racing Team – Aprilia RSV4 Factory – + 9.
225 05- Loris Baz – Kawasaki Racing Team – Kawasaki ZX-10R – + 14.
231 06- Davide Giugliano – Althea Racing – Aprilia RSV4 Factory – + 16.
150 07- Chaz Davies – BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team – BMW S1000RR – + 22.
570 08- Jules Cluzel – FIXI Crescent Suzuki – Suzuki GSX-R 1000 – + 24.
751 09- Leon Camier – FIXI Crescent Suzuki – Suzuki GSX-R 1000 – + 30.
311 10- Carlos Checa – Team Ducati Alstare – Ducati 1199 Panigale R – + 35.
277 11- Max Neukirchner – MR Racing – Ducati 1199 Panigale R – + 44.
355 12- Michel Fabrizio – Red Devils Roma – Aprilia RSV4 Factory – + 52.
580 13- Ayrton Badovini – Team Ducati Alstare – Ducati 1199 Panigale R – + 59.
736 14- Ivan Clementi – HTM Racing – BMW S1000RR – + 1’02.
010 15- Mark Aitchison – Team Effenbert Liberty Racing – Ducati 1098R – + 1’21.
861 16- Federico Sandi – Team Pedercini – Kawasaki ZX-10R – + 1’25.
717 17- Vittorio Iannuzzo – Grillini Dentalmatic SBK – BMW S1000RR – + 1’42.
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