Donington – post-race statistics
WorldSBK.com takes a look at some facts and figures that emerged from the fifth round of the eni FIM Superbike World Championship at Donington Park.
SYKES DOMINATION
Tom Sykes, with pole and double win, the first in his career, had the perfect weekend in Donington.
Fifteenth career pole: he reached Colin Edwards at the sixth all-time place.
He is at his first sequence of four straight poles. No one else among the active riders has ever had a similar streak. With eight career wins, he reached double world champion Fred Merkel and Anthony Gobert at the 25th all-time spot. He is running a string of seven podiums.
Six of his eight wins came leading from lights to flag. The data for this analysis is available from 1998 and in this timespan only four riders won more races in this fashion: Troy Corser (10), Troy Bayliss (9), Ben Spies (8) and Colin Edwards (8).
TOUGH MOMENT FOR DUCATI
It's the worst start to a season for Ducati: in the 25 championship in which they took part before 2013, they had always posted at least one win in the first nine races.
After Donington, the ninth and tenth races of this season, Ducati didn't even climb on the podium.
The current wins drought for Ducati is eleven straight races: only once there was one longer, in 1988-1989, from the second race in Zeltweg, 1988, to the second race in Mosport, 1989, sixteen races;
OTHER INFO
This was the first double for Kawasaki in the world Superbike championship since the 2000 Sugo races (Hitoyasu Izutsu), influenced by the presence of local wild cards. To find another Kawasaki double scored outside Japan, we have to go back to 1996, when Anthony Gobert won both races in Phillip Island.
For the first time in their history, Aprilia was able to nail ten straight races on the podium: during this season they never failed to appear on the rostrum. The absolute record belongs to Ducati, with 67 straight races on the podium, from Sugo, race two, 2002, to Losail, race two, 2005.
Jonathan Rea in race one posted the fastest race lap, putting an end to Honda's drought, which started after the second race at the Nurburgring in 2010. From the 2009 Nurburging race onwards, Jonathan has been the only Honda rider able to score fastest laps, eight.
