ROAD RACING
FIM WORLD SUPERBIKE CHAMPIONSHIP
ROUND 9 / JULY 12-14, 2019
LAGUNA SECA / MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA
P60
FIM WORLD SUPERBIKE
CHAMPIONSHIP
"I honestly wasn't sure—I
didn't really expect that," said
Davies about his clear win over
Rea. "Johnny's pace in the
Superpole race, with a harder
tire, was good, and obviously
his race-one pace was good. It
has been a long time since I won
a race, 16 months really, a long
time, and it feels even longer
than that. A lot of stuff happens
in that time. You do not forget,
but some other people do."
Rea, the big winner in Amer-
ica, almost got used to seeing
the "Bautista Out" pit board sig-
nal, as he took almost maximum
ing arrival in WorldSBK. He has
won 14 races but scored no
points in round nine.
"I do not know if the liga-
ment is stretched or broken,"
said Bautista after the end of
weekend of pain and points
hemorrhaging. "Maybe at the
beginning of the season we
did not expect to win so many
races, but for sure we did not
expect this situation. We have
been crashing in almost all the
rounds. But we crash every time
in the same way; it is difficult to
understand."
By an unusual contrast, Da-
vies was the strong top Ducati
man, and a race winner again—
making it 30 career victories in
all at one of his favorite tracks.
giving him third overall while his
teammate Michael van der Mark
(Pata Yamaha WorldSBK Team)
was seventh, 10th and then a
retiree in race two. The fight for
the places behind the big two is
hotting-up nicely, with third to
fifth overall covered by just 18
points.
Fifth was Sykes, gambling and
only just losing on his SCX rear
tire choice for the second time,
but only five or so seconds from
a podium score on a tire really
designed for 10-lap sprint races.
Haslam, with a broken left-
hand metacarpal, was sixth, Baz
seventh and Torres eighth for his
overall best weekend so far.
For Bautista, Laguna was a
new low point since his astound-
Toprak Razgatlioglu took two third
places and a fourth to continue his
excellent run of mid-season form.
