VOL. 53 ISSUE 37 SEPTEMBER 20, 2016 P57
"I knew that we were going
to be there or thereabouts to
win the race but that margin
of victory—I never expected
that," said Davies.
Sykes was second in the
dry opener—another great
effort given his summer of no
real tests, and at a track Ka-
wasaki had no real data for.
Hayden's podium in race
one, at a circuit he had
tested strongly at, had even
changed his mind on Friday
that fifth or sixth was the best
he could hope for this year in
normal dry track conditions.
"We started the day [Satur-
day] with me on the ground,
in the wet FP3 session,"
Hayden said. "So it was im-
portant to have a good team
and stay calm, stay focused.
The bike worked really well,
especially on braking.
"Chaz just took off,"
Hayden said of race one.
"I wanted to catch Tom and
beat him because he is a
champ, so it would have been
nice to beat him and give the
fans a little show. I think Ka-
wasaki normally set the bar.
They did not test here and
gave everybody a little edge
and maybe if today had been
dry and we had another 15
minutes, another qualifying in
the dry we would have been a
problem. Luckily we had the
test here and I am thankful to
the team to make the effort
to come here. I had a good
race and pace all the way to
having unique visits this time
around.
Despite the deep satisfac-
tion and simple joy felt by
some of the top three at their
podium placing, Rea had the
satisfaction of knowing he
had arrested a slide that had
seen him record two DNFs in
a row with a tremendous wet
weather assault on a circuit
with an inconsistent level of
grip, and many bumps. He is
now maybe going to have to
think about the championship
itself.
"Of course we need some
days to understand and of
course we need to start to
think about the champion-
ship because we have three
rounds," said Rea. "But that
is six races still to go and like
what happened at Laguna
and race one at Lausitzring,
we can see how easy it is to
lose 45 points. I just need to
keep my focus. Lucky now
that we are coming into three
tracks that I really enjoy and
have a lot of data from, unlike
this circuit."
Race-one winner Davies
was on cloud five (his new
number of 2016 season race
wins, but his first since May
at Imola). Geometry changes
from his team, two big tests at
Lausitz and Misano, and his
season was on the up again—
in the dry at least, when he
was unstoppable on Satur-
day afternoon's full distance
demolition job.
