After missing out on Pole Position for only 116 thousandths of a second on Saturday, Tom Sykes’ race day was more, of a nightmare despite the promising pace shown during free practice. In race 1 at Portimao the 2013 World Superbike Champion battled through adversity to take second in a dry-and-wet first 20-lap race, but was forced to finish eighth in race two after a drop in rear tyre pressure all through the 20-laps.

The first encounter saw Sykes and teammate Rea fighting together in dry conditions but with the arrival of a sudden heavy shower and high winds they opted to come in for wet tyres at different times. When Sykes came back out from pitlane, just behind Rea, it looked like a close fight again in the wet. A sudden electronic problem lost Sykes some revs, and therefore pace, until his machine cleared again and he secured second place, nine seconds from Rea. It was Sykes’ seventh podium of the year.

For Sykes a promising race two for a podium ended in a struggle with a deflating rear tyre, due to a damaged wheel rim, that dropped his pace significantly on the last few laps and put him in eighth place.

“It has not been a great day for us and it was such a shame that we had a small technical issue in race one and the flat rear tyre in race two” Sykes admitted. “In race one the revs dropped for a while and then it cleared again, so I could finish second. The tyre had started to go down in pressure from the beginning of race two and it is such a shame because I think we had a good bike set-up. I really wanted to evaluate the bike in race two so we will never truly know the real race performance. We have had a consistent weekend in many ways so it was shame to have this bad luck as Jonathan was on form, and we needed to capitalise.”