Jonathan Rea (KRT) scored two convincing WSB wins at Imola today and in a strong performance from the Kawasaki Racing Team in general his team-mate Tom Sykes was second in each contest. Rea has now won eight of the ten races run so far in 2015.
Rea’s phenomenal Imola performance means he has scored eight wins from ten starts in the FIM Superbike Championship this year, and he now enjoys a huge championship points advantage of 87 points over his nearest challenger.
For Sykes, two second places were his best results of the season putting him up to third in the championship. He is now only 25 points from second place rider Leon Haslam.
“It has been incredible this weekend and I do not know what to say because this kind of run has never happened to me before. I am just enjoying the moment. Said Rea.
"I was honestly a little bit worried about the six lap first race because we were not really set up to be so strong in the beginning of the race but we were able to win. In race two I watched the gap behind and Arturo was giving me great signals from pitlane. When the gap got to one second I thought ‘keep going and no mistakes’.”
The first race was shaping up to be a fight between the top Kawasaki riders until it was stopped at just over half distance. The championship rules demanded a restart, which was only six laps long, but counted for full points. Rea and Sykes once more disputed the lead in this race, with early leader Sykes deposed by Rea on lap three. Rea was to go on to win by 0.482 seconds.
In race two, with marginally warmer track temperatures, again the KRT riders proved the fastest this weekend, with Rea easing away from Sykes in the later stages of the full 19-lap race to make it a double success for himself. With Sykes second again it was a double 1-2 for the KRT squad.
In the championship standings Rea has an almost perfect 240 points, Haslam is second with 153 and Sykes is now third on 128.
The next round takes place at the home round of each rider, Donington Park in the UK, with raceday on May 24th.
2014 WSB Evo champion David Salom (Kawasaki Team Pedercini) suffered a left radius injury after falling in the red flagged first race and as a result missed race two. Roman Ramos (Team Go Eleven Kawasaki) was 11th in the short race one and then a high scoring seventh in race two, moving him to 13th in the championship standings.