Kawasaki man Sykes on the up

Tom Sykes has been a revelation in the past few races, taking his Kawasaki Racing Team ZX-10R to the point of podium challenges, and winning Superpole at the last round in Imola. The Paul Bird Motorsports operated team has recently found some settings that allow Sykes to use the machine's strong points to the maximum, and the rider from Yorkshire in England has made best use of them, posting a season best of fourth last time out.

Sykes is 14th in the overall rankings and has a real chance of catching Jakub Smrz, who is only three points ahead, if he repeats his recent form.

Said Sykes, on the eve of the final round, "I am keeping my feet firmly on the ground to see where we end up this weekend." He continued, "We have a good little base setting working now, which was good in Germany and in Italy. So it is now more a case of fine-tuning the set-up of the bike around our optimum setting for the Magny-Cours round, and hopefully the bike will work well again. We will see what the weekend brings."