It was a frustrating afternoon for Tom Sykes in the Netherlands, as he crashed out of Race 1 when riding in third place at the end of lap nine after having started from pole.

“It was just a shame,” lamented Sykes. “We were so fast in Superpole and I was just trying to settle into a rhythm at the start of the race. Chaz came past and was strong but there was a moment where I was trying to get to the front just to try something different but I never got that far. I made a small mistake, it was my own fault. Coming into the last chicane I just missed my initial backshift so I went into the corner a bit too fast and a bit too free on the engine so unfortunately with the track the way it is, it was quite dirty so I lost the front.”

KRT man Sykes had taken pole by more than half a second with a superb lap of 1’35.440 and was well positioned in the race before he lost the front going into T16.

“I´m disappointed that I made this mistake because it’s unlike me and if it’s in practice you can live with it, but in the race we’ve definitely lost a lot of potential points and it’s something we need to try and regroup from,” explained the 2013 World Champion. “Tomorrow we need to make some changes to the bike anyway, and hopefully that will be enough to get a strong result and continue with our season. I know what the bike was doing and I know where we need to improve, there’s the chance to also use a different selection of front and rear tyres so there’s a lot of information and we’ve got a small session in the morning if it’s dry to check. I think we’re prepared and we can still race tomorrow like nothing happened.”