Kawasaki Racing Team rider Tom Sykes stormed to a remarkable win starting from pole position in the Malaysian round of the World Superbike Championship.

The 30-year-old Briton clocked 33 minutes and 30.487 seconds in the 16-lap race at the Sepang Circuit, here today.

Sykes earlier had smashed the Superbike Best Lap record at Sepang Circuit with a time of 2:02.246s during the Superpole 2 qualifying session.

He erased the best lap time set by France's Sylvain Guintoli of 2:03.002s set during the inaugural Malaysia Round in 2014.

"We have a very good feeling over the weekend. The feeling is nice that I'm able to ride in a very consistant race. Obviously, we still have to improve some more for tomorrow," said Sykes.

Sykes led his team-mate and reigning world champion Jonathan Rea to a Kawasaki Racing Team one-two finish in Race 1.

Rea finished the 16-lap race just 5.600 seconds behind Sykes, while another Briton, Chaz Davies of Aruba.it Racing Ducati came in third.

With the win, Sykes moved to third in the riders' championship standings with 179 points and the second placing helped Rea to extend his lead on the leaderboard to 39 points over Davies, who has 202 points.

The Race 2 of the superbike class will starts at 4pm tomorrow while the Supersports class starts at 2.20pm.