Cycle News

ROAD RACE FIM WORLD SUPERBIKE CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND 10 / SEPTEMBER 14-16, 2018 AUTODROMO INTERNACIONAL ADO ALGARVE / ALGARVE, PORTUGAL P68 Despite suffering a re-injured collarbone only a couple of weeks or so before the race action at Portimao, potential championship runner-up Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing Ducati) scored fourth place, over ten seconds down but riding with re- duced physical power and some pain. He kept Tom Sykes behind him in fifth, with the second KRT rider finding little front-edge grip in the hot conditions. Loris Baz may have been the best part of 20 seconds from the win, but sixth on his Gulf Althea than the one it used to dominate, with Max Biaggi and others. Marco Melandri (Aruba.It Racing Ducati), chasing Rea but knowing the Kawasaki rider was going to get away, upped the pace anyway. Savadori respond- ed but asked too much and fell at high speed, without injury. That left the barn door open for Michael van der Mark (Pata Ya- maha), moving forward from fifth in Superpole and sixth on lap one, to an inherited third by the end. He was over four seconds back on Rea. so in the end I was riding on the maximum and just eking tenths out, tenth by tenth. I put every- thing into the race and managed to get 25 points," he said. Luckless pole man Laverty was taken out by an ambitious Fores, who could not stop and took both riders out of conten- tion. Lorenzo Savadori (Milwau- kee Aprilia) was on outstanding form to follow those riders, as Aprilia's oldie-but-goodie RSV4 has finally revealed its secrets in a much more stock-engined era iii My Own Race: 64 FEDERICO CARICASULO 1ST WORLDSSP "It was a lucky race today for me. I was strong in the race, as we have been all weekend, but I didn't quite have the pace to close the gap to Lucas, as he was pushing so hard at the front," he said. "I was happy with second; the victory was for Lucas, but then he had the problem with the tire and that allowed me to take the lead. Sometimes it is like this; I have been unlucky in the past and he was unlucky today. I'm sorry for him, but I'm happy for the championship, as I'm a lot closer to the top of the standings now." 60 MICHAEL VAN DER MARK 3-2 WORLDSBK "I didn't get the best of starts, but I stayed calm because I knew the grip levels would be low with the track temperature going up a lot," van der Mark said. "We'd changed the bike a little bit to compensate for this and it felt quite good from the start. Step by step I made my way through to the front and I was able to run pretty much the same pace as Johnny, Chaz and Marco. But then Marco and Chaz got into a battle with each other and I was able to take advantage of them both running wide out of turn one to pass them for second place. I tried to catch Johnny, but he just had a little bit more pace than me in the closing stages of the race. Anyway, another podium is an amazing way to end what has been a great weekend for me and my team, and we will keep pushing next time in France." 7 CHAZ DAVIES 4-4 WORLDSBK "This was one of the most challenging rounds in my career, for sure," Davies said. "Portimao is one of the most physical tracks on the calendar and I haven't been able to train properly for a long time, not to mention the pain in the right shoulder. Honestly, if somebody would have told me that I would get P4 twice here, I wouldn't have believed it. Big thanks to my guys because we've made strides with the pack- age through the weekend and we ended up actually quite close to the winners. Now we've got a few days to train and rehab ahead of Magny Cours to kickstart the final part of the season. I'm looking forward to the next race."

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