Downshifting mistake caused Sykes' Assen crash

Sykes claimed his third Superpole in just four weekends this year but, similarly to the previous two occasions, he failed to convert any of the races into victories.

The 2013 champion lost his lead to teammate and eventual race winner Jonathan Rea in the early part of Race 1, and lost further two places before crashing out at the final chicane.

"The bike was absolutely perfect I just made a small mistake, when I started braking I missed the initial backshift of the gears and unfortunately it was a little bit free on the entry," explained the 30-year-old Briton.

"I was wide and unfortunately there was a lot of dust. On a normal race I would just have made a very slow chicane and continued but the condition caught me out.

"I'm sorry because it was a little bit of a rider error, but these things happen."

New weekend format helped Sykes start second race

Unlike in previous years, when both races were held on Sunday, the series now holds its first race of each weekend on Saturday.

While the new format provided new challenges for the teams, Sykes outlined the importance of giving the teams more time to recover from a potential crash in the first race.

"It is good in a way, the format proved quite difficult for everyone in terms of race setup and that's why you see big difference in lap times," he said.

"The good things is now the mechanics had a lot of time to rebuild the bike, obviously we have the one-bike rule.

"It's good because otherwise to make Race 2 we would have been in absolute mess so it gave everyone a good time to give me a nice new girlfriend for Sunday."

Sykes finished the wet-dry Sunday race in second, only beaten by Rea.

With his teammate winning both races of the weekend, Sykes is now 59 points behind in third place.

Interview by Toni Boerner