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WSBK: All Eyes On Sykes
Kawasaki Racing Team's Tom Sykes could be in line for a breakout year in 2012.
Media Release  |  Posted March 23, 2012   Barcelona (ESP)
Kawasaki Racing Team's Tom Sykes (Photo: Kawasaki Racing)
For the Kawasaki Racing Team and Tom Sykes the results of the first round at Phillip Island were an expression of how hard work in the right areas can make good results at the first time of asking.

The awesome amount of work that Kawasaki has put into its official racing program in the past couple of years has already delivered results for the Ninja ZX-10R but the other half of the performance quotient is the rider. And in Tom Sykes Kawasaki has a competitor who has grown in stature along with his bike. Even champion Carlos Checa has spoken of him as being a force in 2012.

So what has made the 26-year-old Sykes the rider he is today? Hard work, the right work, and an unshakeable determination to get to where he wants to be, seem to be the answers.

Sykes had his first ever four-stroke race on his grandfather’s pretty much road spec Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R after Tom made the swap from two-strokes in his early British Championship career. Some impressive wild card rides and then a difficult debut SBK season in 2009, while riding for another manufacturer, was marred by injury and a much greater general focus on his Superstar teammate Ben Spies.

It took inner steel to get over a season like that, and since then Sykes has displayed great mental strength and focus. “It was hard to take in 2009,” says Tom. “Mentally it was difficult, because I knew I could do a lot better. I know Spies was an absolute talent but I still believe in myself that the gap was not what it appeared to be. That year put me back a bit.”

Picked up by KRT in 2010, and held onto for 2011 with the support of the PBM team that ran KRT’s operations on the ground at that time, Sykes provided good race pace and a consistent level of feedback. That and the never-ending work on machine development he put in are truly valued assets by Kawasaki. It has been a tough road for Tom and KRT on occasions, glorious at times, but the feeling is that a corner has been turned after the efforts of last winter.

In 2011, an entirely new and more contemporary Ninja ZX-10R did provide challenges to all.

“With such a different bike from 2011 onwards we did not have just one step up to make in performance, we probably had two steps, almost three steps, to make,” is Tom’s opinion of going from 2010 into 2011. That’s when things started to move forward with a real pace, after a winter of development that Sykes had a large hand in. “Credit to everyone involved, we did a reasonable job last year,” said Sykes, typically downplaying things. “We showed signs of potential and had some good results.” Those results included his first win in SBK racing, at the rain-soaked Nürburgring in Germany, of course.
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