First Tom Sykes (KRT) and then championship leader Jonathan Rea (KRT) scored race victories at the eighth round of the FIM Superbike World Championship at Misano overnight Rea leaving with an extended lead of 133 points over his team-mate in the overall standings.
In the first 21-lap race Sykes rode from pole position to the win by a margin of 3.613 seconds over Rea, after the rider from Northern Ireland had opted for a different rear tyre from all his rivals and got held up in some of the early laps.
Sykes just counted the fast laps off out front to take his third win of 2015 but Rea had to fight for second in the final laps under pressure from another rider. He held on to take his 16th straight podium finish of the year.
‰ÛÏA lot of people would dream about a weekend with a pole position, a win and a fifth place but we were just not able to do it in race two." Sykes said. "I do not think I started very well in race two but from the beginning I was lacking some grip and it was very difficult to recover.
"When I started fighting with other riders I was not able to be strong where I needed to be but we tried everything we could. I knew both races would be difficult today but we had a great race one. We were just not able to repeat it in race two. We have had positives and negatives this weekend and we will move on to America now.‰Û
