Misano Adriatico, Italy – Works Kawasaki riders Tom Sykes and Jonathan Rea tightened their stranglehold on the World Superbike series with a win apiece at the seaside circuit, further extending Rea’s commanding lead in the championship and consolidating Sykes’ second place in the standings.
South African riders fared well as David ‘McFlash’ McFadden, out for the first time on the Team Suzuki Europe GSX-R1000, scored his first Superstock points of the season with 14th place, while fellow Capetonian Ronals ‘The Red Baron’ Slamet brought the BWG Kawasaki home in a solid 24th after qualifying 32nd out of 35.
RACE 1
Sykes converted 27th career Superpole into his 25th race win, his third of the season, leading every lap to come home ahead of team-mate and championship leader Jonathan Rea, and factory Ducati rider Chaz Davies, who delighted the Italian fans around the circuit with an incredible final-lap duel for second, as Davies dived past Rea into the final corner only to run wide, being passed again on the run to the flag by Rea.
Davide Giugliano put the second factory Ducati into fourth, after setting a new lap record on lap three and running second for most of the 21 laps before being overhauled by Rea and Davies in the final two laps.
Aprilia team leader Leon Haslam was unable to show the pace he had in qualifying; he came home fifth, narrowly avoiding being beaten by wild card team-mate Max Biaggi – a few days shy of his 44th birthday and who hadn’t raced for nearly three years.
The six times former world champion put in a steady ride to haul in Haslam after surviving a heart-stopping moment on the opening lap when he collided with lead Honda rider Sylvain Guintoli.
Guintoli would eventually finish ninth after dicing for the full 21 laps with Ayrton Badovini (BMW), Michele Pirro (Ducati Team) who finished seventh and eighth respectively, and his Honda team-mate Michael van der Mark who finished just behind Guintoli in 10th.
Haslam’s team mate, rookie Jordi Torres, was running in the leading group before crashing at Turn 3 on the third lap and walking back to the pits, visibly annoyed with himself.
RACE 2
Rea took the honours in the second outing after a race long fight with Giugliano, who took the lead on lap seven and held it until Rea passed with five laps to go. The championship leader was kept under constant pressure, but held on to record his 11th win of the year by 1.290s – equalling Troy Corser’s 2005 record of 16 consecutive podium finishes in a season.
Behind the first two, Haslam got the better of Davies’ Ducati - after another race-long duel - to claim the final podium place. Sykes ran strongly for the first half of the race before dropping back to fifth at the flag, just ahead of Aprilia duo Biaggi and Torres, who swopped places on almost every lap.
Michele Pirro rode a lonely race to finish eighth on the third factory Ducati, with Pata Honda team-mates Guintoli and Van der Mark completing the top 10. The final five point-scoring riders were Badovini, Niccolo Canepa (Ducati), Markus Reiterberger (BMW), Ramos and David Salom (Kawasaki).
MV Agusta star Jules Cluzel converted pole position into his third win of 2015, the 10th of his World Supersport career, smashing the class lap record for the Misano circuit by more than half a second on his way to win by 1.525 seconds.
Championship leader Kenan Sofuoglu crashed out of third on the final lap. He was able to remount and finish 11th, salvaging what could a crucial five points, but his lead was cut to half what it was before the Riviera di Rimini round.
At the end of 19 laps, Cluzel was joined on the podium by PJ Jacobsen (Honda) and Lorenzo Zanetti (MV Agusta). Gino Rea (Honda) finished fourth ahead of an elated Alex Baldolini (MV Agusta) who snatched fifth from Fabio Menghi (Yamaha) on the final lap.
Christian Gamarino (Kawasaki) just edged Rea’s team-mate Riccardo Russo for seventh, ahead of Marco Faccani (Kawasaki) and Martin Cardenas (Honda).
SUPERSTOCK 1000
Lorenzo Savadori (Aprilia) took a hard-fought win in the sixth race of the 2015 Superstock 1000 Cup, his fourth victory of the season. The tall Italian rider took advantage of the battle for second place storming behind him, which saw Raffaele De Rosa (Ducati) successfully defend his position from numerous attacks Roberto Tamburini (BMW).
Kevin Calia (Aprilia) managed to stay with the leading trio but was unable to get into the mix for a podium finish, as was Yamaha rider Kevin Coghlan, who dropped back in the closing stages after running second for a few laps.
He eventually finished fifth ahead of team-mate Jeremy Guarnoni as Christoffer Bergman (Yamaha), Ondrej Jezek (Ducati), Bryan Staring (Kawasaki) and Fabio Massei (Ducati) rounded out the top 10.