Sykes targets ongoing improvements

Following Tom Sykes’ two point scoring finishes at Portimao the team completed a successful two day test in Valencia this week ahead of next weekends WSB race at the Spanish track.

During second qualifying at Portimao, Sykes appeared to make a break through with his factory ZX10R when he finished ninth, just 0.482 off provisional pole following the introduction of new Showa suspension. The uprated suspension components initially appeared to cure the some of the mid corner balance problems of the bike but as Sykes explained it was all about grip levels.

He said:
“At the end of the day when I’ve got grip the bike turns and when it turns I can do the lap times. I can be consistent but unfortunately my consistent laps aren’t quick enough
The problem I’ve got is that I’m going into the corner on the brakes but I’m getting to a point where the bike doesn’t want to turn. We’ll keep chipping away and we’ve still got a lot of ideas and a lot of things to try.

“Portimao was one of the teams bogey tracks because you spend so long on the side of the tyre. We’ve scored points in both races but for me it’s not good enough because I know we can do better. At the end of the day I’m going to stay positive because I knew it was going to be difficult to start with. Head down and we’ll keep trying and after testing there I’m hoping Valencia can be better.”