Reigning FIM Superbike World Champion Jonathan Rea and 2013 champion Tom Sykes once more came out on top during the Misano race weekend, with Rea and Sykes replicating Saturday’s race result of Jonathan first and Tom second, albeit in a different kind of race. Rea’s latest win puts him 66 points ahead of his official Ninja ZX-10R team-mate in the championship table, with just one more round at Laguna Seca to come before the long summer break begins.

The lead Ninja ZX-10R pairing had the field to themselves almost from the start once again after taking a clear 1-2 on Saturday but this time it was Sykes who did the front running. His lead lasted until lap 17, when Rea put in a pass entering the first corner and held the line on the way out of the chicane.

Rea pushed on to create a gap that ended up being 2.963 seconds at the end of the 21-lap contest around the 2.226km circuit on Italy’s Adriatic coast. Realising he would not catch his team-mate before the end, Sykes had eased off slightly to make sure of his strong second place finish.

Misano was Rea’s seventh win of the year, and the 36th of his career. He remains the fourth most successful WorldSBK rider in history in terms of race wins.

The second race was held in cooler conditions than Saturday’s opening event, with Rea making a tyre option change that he later said was an important part of his race two winning strategy – particularly when added to chassis set-up modifications that also helped his Sunday cause.

Although Sykes’ push at the front could not quite be maintained to the end of the race he still scored another 20 valuable points as he and his team-mate moved further away from their other competitors in the championship standings. Kawasaki leads the Manufacturers’ Standings by 74 points after Misano.

Rea has now scored seven wins this year, and has a total of 343 points to Sykes’ 277. Five rounds and ten individual races remain, starting at Laguna Seca between 8th and 10th July 2016. Before then, the KRT squad will undertake a day of testing at Misano tomorrow, Monday 20th June.

资料提供 [ Kawasaki Motors Europe N.V. ]