Honda’s Sylvain Guintoli finished fourth in both tenth round WorldSBKraces which were held at a hot and steamy Sepang International Circuit near Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Britons Jonathan Rea and Chaz Davies scored one win apiece.

Starting from the front row of the grid, Guintoli was aware of how important tyre management would be on his Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP over the 16 laps of the 5.543km Sepang circuit and the French rider dropped a few places in the early stages of the first race.

However, as the laps were ticked off, Guintoli reeled in several riders with tyre performance issues in front of him, including British rider Tom Sykes on the final lap, to record his best result of the season.

The reigning World Superbike Champion got a superb start to race two and was able to avoid a crash that took out wildcard Max Biaggi. He was also able fend off the attentions of his Pata Honda team-mate Michael van der Mark, who enjoyed a great surge forward from his starting position of 12th on the grid.

Sylvain Guintoli: “It’s been a really good weekend for us and we were able to find some pace on the qualifying tyre on Saturday, which gave us a front row start for the races. It’s very positive for us and, at the risk of repeating myself, the whole team has been working very hard throughout the season and it looks like it’s paying off. They were both very tough races and I had to push very hard but it’s good to take those performances into the summer break. Unfortunately, there are no prizes for fourth but we’re chipping away; we are not too far off now and we’re getting a better understanding. We’ll work hard to find extra performance and we’ll try to finish the championship strong over the last three rounds.”