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After a winter of back and forth between Sykes and Rea, both races in Thailand showed how closely matched they could be in 2016...

We've waited patiently for a no holds barred fight between Tom Sykes and Jonathan Rea, and both races in Thailand delivered that in spades with the Kawasaki riders delivering one of the most exciting weekends of racing in memory.

A bumper crowd of 81,000 watching on over the course of the weekend was treated to two last lap classics, with the riders splitting the spoils with a win apiece. It was crucial for Sykes to prove his mettle in a straight fight with Rea after having been beatenby his teammate over the course of the 2015 season.

As a former WorldSBK Champion, it's easy to understand what Sykes must have felt last year having seen Rea join Kawasaki and instantly become the Champion. Consequently, a burning desire to prove he is still a title contender fired Sykes this weekend and, while he was beaten on Saturday, his performance in Race 2 showed exactly what we can expect from him this year.

On Sunday in Buriram, Sykes rode like he did during 2013: he dictated the pace and how races unfolded. In his title winning year Sykes would hit the front and dominate proceedings by making it impossible for riders to attack him. The 27 times WorldSBK race winner has a truly unique style of riding; whereas most riders will be moving as far from their bikes as possible and generating leverage for their lean angle, Sykes is almost locked in position on the bike. It's counter intuitive for many riders but he has consistently found a way to make it work.

On Sunday we saw the perfect illustration of how difficult it is to depose Sykes once he hits the front and is riding with confidence. The Englishman put his bike where it needed to be at all times and that forced Rea to have to try and make moves in unusual places on the track. The one area in which we saw Rea make his overtakes was at the end of the long straight leading into turn four.

Turn four is the fastest corner at Chang International Circuit and with so much corner speed being carried, riders have to thread the eye of a needle through the apex with a very narrow line with which to get the bike setup for the slower turn five that follows. Rea was able to carry unbelievable corner speed through the turn on the final two laps but each time he was simply too fast and ran wide into the next corner. This opened the door for Sykes to move back into the lead and the 30 year old didn't need a second invitation before barging back past. The proceedings came down to a last corner scrap that saw Sykes defend resolutely by veering across the track.

"With five laps to go I planned the race and we had a stable bike in some key areas and that's what gave us the win," explained Sykes afterwards. "I knew that there'd be moves on the last lap and I knew where I expected they'd be. I sacrificed some speed to block the line and into the last corner I really had to defend. Into that corner we had some really good braking performance."

After the race, Rea said openly that he'd been beaten fair and square, but it was clear that the robust defence from Sykes had left the defending Champion upset. Racing is a hard and brutal sport and in recent years we've seen time and again that on the last lap of races, riders can push that to the limit. In Thailand there's no doubting that Sykes' riding was aggressive, but it was also clean.

Chaz Davies had the best seat in the house and the Ducati rider agreed, "it was just racing and there was nothing crazy out there. There was some big moves but it was just racing.”

Those final laps in Thailand were thrilling and offered us a great insight into what we can expect going forward this year. Sykes laid down a marker in Race 2 and showed that he will be able to fight with Rea in 2016, as pre-season testing had teased. It's exactly what the Championship needs and despite Rea both leading the standings and leaving Thailand as the title favourite, there is plenty of hope for the opposition when the season resumes in Europe next month at MotorLand Aragon.