Donington Homecoming For Sykes And Rea
As the 2017 FIM Superbike World Championship reaches round six in a few days’ time official Ninja ZX-10RR riders Jonathan Rea (KRT) and Tom Sykes (KRT) will enjoy the thrill of competing at their home venue of Donington Park.
After five rounds of competition in 2017 Jonathan Rea leads the championship, and by a wide margin, after scoring seven race wins from ten attempts. His team-mate Tom Sykes is third overall, just one point from second place, with seven podium finishes added to his career tally already in 2017.
It has been a remarkable start to the season for 2015 and 2016 champion Rea, featuring not only his seven race victories but also three second places. This early combined success gives him a points total only 15 less than an absolute maximum at this stage.
Jonathan’s Donington record in WorldSBK also includes one race win, in 2012. The Northern Irish rider’s ambition at his home round this year is to add more victories to his current career win tally of 45.
Sykes has been suffering with a significant bacterial infection in his intestine for some time now but has seen a marked improvement in his overall fitness in the past few days.
Looking for his first race win of 2017, Sykes can stand no better chance of taking full points than at Donington Park. The Yorkshireman is the most successful WorldSBK competitor ever at the 4.023km circuit near his adopted home. He has recorded eight wins in front of his home fans – and all eight were taken in succession, from 2013 to 2016.
In all, Kawasaki has won 13 individual races at Donington Park since it all began in 1988. The previous five Kawasaki wins, before Sykes’s amazing run of victories, were seized by 1993 World Champion Scott Russell.
The WorldSBK Championship first got underway at Donington Park way back in April of 1988. This season’s race weekend will mark the 25th time this venue has hosted the series.
The WorldSBK community and KRT will also reconvene at Donington not just to compete but to celebrate the life of MotoGP champion and fellow WorldSBK competitor Nicky Hayden, who passed away on Monday 22nd May after being involved in a road traffic accident while cycling in Italy last week. Kawasaki sends out its sincere condolences to Nicky’s family and friends.
This season the races will take place on Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th May, with unusual starting times of 15.00 local on each occasion. After the British weekend has been completed the championship will then move to Italy for the second time in 2017. The Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli will host what will be the halfway point of the 13-round/26-race season, with WorldSBK racedays of 17th and 18th June.
Jonathan Rea, stated: “I’m really excited about coming back to Donington Park after a great start to the season. The track itself is a lot of fun but it is also challenging to find a good balance between stability in the heavy braking areas, and agility in the fast and flowing parts. After Imola we have a better understanding of our bike and I’m looking forward to putting some new set-up ideas in place. I have received great support at the past at Donington and I know a lot of people are travelling from Northern Ireland, so it will definitely have the ‘home race’ feel. It’s been a long time since I won at Donington so putting that right is the main target of the weekend.”
Tom Sykes, stated: “Going back to Donington Park is obviously very exciting. It is a track where I have had some success and done well in the recent past. This year I feel we are fairly well set up after having had a good weekend at Assen and then again in Imola. Now we start to go to some circuits where I have performed better in the past – Donington being one of them. My health has been improving and the preparations are better than previous rounds as a result. Touchwood, the sickness and so on has not been there for the past few days, so I am quietly confident we will not have an interrupted race weekend.”
Guim Roda, KRT Team Manager, stated: “Life must be lived with intensity, and only those who achieve such intensity can say proudly that they have lived it. I am sure Nicky was one of those people. For the last two seasons he was one of our competitors, a strong one, but he always had a smile on his face when you looked at him. Not many of us have had the pleasure to know him deeply but I’m sure all of us know him as a good person, as a fair guy. He was someone with values and a good upbringing. All of us in the Kawasaki family want to give him a warm salute and to pass on our best wishes to Tommy, Roger and all his family and close friends. We will never forget him.”