overall performance from Leon
Camier and the MV Agusta
Reparto Corse team in race one
saw him sixth, making the Pata
Yamaha struggles this weekend
appear stark, indeed.
In race two, Camier fell on lap
three while in second position,
but he would probably not have
stopped the charge of Davies
and Rea in any case.
Behind the top few, the Pata
Yamaha pairing of Michael van
der Mark (seventh and ninth) and
Alex Lowes (eighth and sixth)
were way off the pace, as they
could not find improvements at
Imola they had been working out
all year to now.
High drama and near horror
arrived for Lowes when he and
Eugene Laverty (Milwaukee
Aprilia) tangled down the scary
fast drop towards the Rivazza
double lefts.
Lowes passed Laverty inside;
Laverty felt eased wide at a very
fast curve and as they both tried
to recover track position, they
collided. The Yamaha's footpeg
and the Aprilia's front end made
contact, Laverty's brake line was
severed, his fender got dis-
lodged and then he jumped of at
128 mph as he realized he had
no brakes.
The bike stayed on its wheels
for some distance, then flipped
and smashed into the wall, and
the fuel tank ignited. Laverty
flipped and tumbled but miracu-
lously walked away to fight for
a true grit seventh on Sunday,
even overcoming the usual trait
of fading as the races go on.
Lowes had finished 1.5 sec-
onds ahead, in sixth place.
A neo-disaster of a weekend
for the Red Bull Honda team saw
Nicky Hayden a non-finisher and
then only 12th. Stefan Bradl 10th
and then 14th—54 seconds down
on Davies.
"It hasn't been a good day,"
Hayden said after Saturday's
race. "I had a small crash this
morning which cost me some
important track time, and then
in the race we had an electrical
problem so there was not much
I could do. The dashboard went
off and I didn't know what was
going on, so it was impossible to
stay out. It's a shame, really, not
just for me but for the team as
well. I hope we can have a better
day tomorrow."
It was better, but not much.
"My second start to the race
was not as great as the first one,
but I still managed to move up a
couple of places," Hayden said
after race two. "I was able to
stay in the group fighting for sixth
place for the majority of the race
and I was running better than at
any time over the weekend, but
unfortunately towards the end,
I lost a balance weight off the
wheel which caused a vibra-
VOL. 54 ISSUE 19 MAY 16, 2017 P33
Chaz Davies turned the tables at
the Imola round of the WorldSBK
Championship. The Ducati
foreman won both races over
points leader Jonathan Rea.
