WorldSBK.com provides some facts and figures that emerged from Round 11 of the eni FIM Superbike World Championship at Intercity Istanbul Park.
Ducati lived their worst weekend of their Superbike story. In Race 1 Ayrton Badovini managed to line-up on the grid, but a technical problem forced him out of the race. The absence of the injured Carlos Checa and Max Neukirchner meant that for the third time in the 639 Superbike races run so far, there were no Ducatis at the finish line. The other two were in Donington, back in 1989, when pole-man Raymond Roche, the only rider for Ducati (among 54 entries), retired in both races.
In Race 2 the situation got even worse, as Ayrton Badovini didn’t manage to take the start: for the first time in Superbike history there were no Ducatis on the starting grid.
Badovini’s retirement in race one ended a string of 220 races in the points for Ducati, started in 2005 at Monza. This was the second all-time string, behind the one set again by Ducati, from Brainerd 1991 to Valencia 2005 Race 1, which in that case managed to score points for 344 consecutive races.
Tom Sykes scored his eighteenth pole, the 37th for Kawasaki. The Japanese manufacturer reached at the third all-time spot Yamaha. At the first two places lie Ducati (163 poles) and Honda (44).
Tenth front row start for Sylvain Guintoli: his last front row start was in Donington, back in May.
Eugene Laverty recorded his second double win after Monza 2011: with these two wins he reached 25 career podiums, going at the 27th all-time spot, in front of World Champion Fred Merkel (24).
Aprilia had scored their last double in Australia with Guintoli (his only win of the year) and the same Laverty. After the Turkish races Aprilia counts seven wins this season, the same they recorded two years ago in the entire championship. Their season record was set in 2010, with ten, all by Max Biaggi.
Two podium finishes for Tom Sykes, which now counts 28, the same of Regis Laconi and Leon Haslam (23rd all-time spot). These two podiums take Kawasaki to 170 races in the podium (record: Ducati, 490).
Toni Elias, fifth in grid, sixth in race one and fifth in race two, recorded the best result for a rookie since 2011, when Marco Melandri in Phillip Island qualified eighth, finishing fifth in race one and third in race two. In the same weekend Eugene Laverty, also at his maiden races, was fifth in grid and fourth in race one. In race two he finished fifteenth after running off-track for a false neutral, when he was fifth.
