Tom Sykes has revealed that he is hoping for race wins – and plenty of them – as the 2008 British Superbike Championship roars into its second half at
Oulton Park this weekend.
The Rizla Suzuki ace currently sits sixth in the title standings, substantially ahead of team-mate Atsushi Watanabe, just a single point adrift of Michael Rutter and in touch with third-placed Leon Camier and fourth-placed Leon Haslam with seven of 13 rounds completed.
What's more, the 22-year-old stormed to his first pole position of the year at
Mallory Park last month, but was out of luck come the races as he faded to fourth in the opening encounter and fought his way back to the same position in the second outing, after risking taking the start on slick tyres on a wet-but-drying track.
“It's not been so good,” Sykes acknowledged, speaking exclusively to
Crash.net Radio during last weekend's Goodwood Festival of Speed. “We've had a lot of bad luck, but at the end of the day everyone knows that both I and the Rizla Suzuki are capable of running at the front. We plan to put that to use over the second half of the season and definitely get some race wins.
“Mallory was my first pole this year – I've had pole position before in Superbikes – and there's no reason why we can't do that every weekend. We've got the pace, and it was something I was expecting to do. We had good pace all weekend at Mallory and like I said, it was something I felt was coming anyway.”
Affirming that he is chasing ‘plenty of race wins' over the remaining twelve races – beginning at Oulton Park this weekend, where he lines up a strong third on the grid, a mere thousandth of a second shy of championship leader Shane ‘Shakey' Byrne in second – the Yorkshireman was also clearly bowled over by what he found at Goodwood, his first visit to what has become known as the world's premier motor racing summer garden party.
