Maiden pole for Davies

Chaz Davies did the double at Laguna Seca, winning races one and two of the World Superbikes stop in the United States. Sykes positioned his bike beautifully to take second ahead of Rea, potentially delaying his future title coronation in the process, while Davide Giugliano recovered from his poor start to take fourth ahead of Jordi Torres.

Proceeding to keep it tidy all the way to the chequered flag, Sykes’ efforts were enough to earn him second position, with Rea forced to settle for – remarkably – his worst result of the season in third.

Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes and Jonathan Rea dominated the timesheets coming into Superpole but will start from fourth and fifth on the grid, with Red Devils Aprilia rider Jordi Torres squeezing into third.

Alex Lowes (Voltcom Crescent Suzuki) inherited 6 after Leon Haslam slid out of contention, while reigning champion Sylvain Guintoli powered the Pata Honda to 7ahead of his team mate and reigning World Supersport champion Michael van der Mark.

In race two, the podium spots stayed the same as Davies was dominant once again over Sykes and Rea.

The Ulsterman had several attempts as he swarmed all over the back of his teammate, first charging up the inside into the final corner on lap nineteen only to run wide allow Sykes back through, before a second move at turn two shortly afterwards brought a similar lack of reward.

The remaining point scorers were Randy de Puniet (Voltcom Crescent Suzuki), Roman Ramos (Team Go Eleven), Matteo Baiocco (Althea Racing), Gianluca Vizziello (Grillini Racing) and Christophe Ponsson (Team Pedercini).

Rea leads the championship standings on 407 points, with Sykes second on 282 and Davies third on 263, ahead of the 10th round of the series in Malaysia in two weeks’ time.