Tom Sykes, Eugene Laverty Claim World Superbike Wins

The two World Superbike races at the Assen TT Circuit in the Netherlands saw a few of the motorsports series' top riders dominate as Kawasaki's Tom Sykes and Aprilia's Eugene Laverty won the first and second race, respectively.

In the first race, Sykes opened up with a huge lead and cruised to his sixth career win. In the process, he set a new lap record and managed to cross the finish line more than eight seconds ahead of Jonathan Rea and Sylvain Guintoli, who rounded out the podium in second and third place, respectively.

Laverty rebounded from a tough performance at Aragon in the previous round to win the second race, finishing just a fraction of a second in front of Sykes after passing him for the lead with just a few laps remaining.

"I had the right feeling even though I didn't think I would be [able] to stay up with Sykes. But in the end I was able to keep up with his pace," Laverty said. "... Winning today was important. We [are] back in the fight for the championship, and we were able to leave the troubles from Aragon behind us."

After the weekend, Laverty and Sykes move into a three-way tie for second place in the standings with Chaz Davies. Guintoli remains comfortably in the lead by about 28 points.