Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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ROAD RACE FIM WORLD SUPERBIKE CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND 8 / JULY 7-9, 2017 MAZDA RACEWAY LAGUNA SECA / MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA P70 WorldSBK Race One 1. Chaz Davies (Duc) 2. Jonathan Rea (Kaw) 3. Tom Sykes (Kaw) 4. Marco Melandri (Duc) 5. Xavi Fores (Duc) Race Two 1 Jonathan Rea (Duc) 2 Tom Sykes (Kaw) 3 Chaz Davies (Duc) 4 Marco Melandri (Duc) 5 Xavi Fores (Duc) contention for second but again, but he is 115 points behind Rea and even now a significant 56 behind Sykes. The top teams get only so much rest as they will reconvene for testing at Laustizring in late July ready for a race weekend there August 18-20. Rea is holding the whip hand for sure, but even after starting his championship management mode before the summer recess, he looks every inch the history man as he goes for an unprec- edented three World Champion- ships in succession. CN BMW Racing Team) was a double faller and Roman Ramos (Team GOELEVEN Kawasaki) was 12th in each race. In the championship itself Rea is now 59 points ahead of Sykes, who cannot seem to get quite as much out of the ZX- 10RR each weekend as Rea, and seems consigned to great stats (13 podiums in the 16 races so far, including two wins) but no chance of another world title— unless some real dramas unfold. Entering the main five-week- end summer break, Davies made a strong play to get back into My Own Race: 7 CHAZ DAVIES 1-3 WORLDSBK "I was struggling with grip on the first touch of gas, at high lean angles," Chaz Davies said after race two. "I tried my best to take second place, but we would have needed more laps. Now we'll take a break, which will be impor- tant to resume training and get back to 100 percent, even though my physical conditions were decent here. Then, we'll go test at Lausitzring, which will be very important for the second part of the season." 33 MARCO MELANDRI 4-4 WORLDSBK "For sure we expected a better result after practice," commented Marco Me- landri. "Yesterday's race was a bit strange, while after WUP today we thought we found the right direction to take at least the podium, but once again we struggled during the race. It seems that our base setup is really competitive but doesn't work as well in hot conditions, where we struggle with grip. We need to understand why. Anyway, it's been a positive first half of the season. I gradually adjusted to the bike and I feel progressively more comfortable. Of course we wanted to do better here after winning at Misano. The tests at Lausitzring will be very useful. We'll get better, my team is working really hard and I'm optimistic for the future." 45 JAKE GAGNE 11-14 WORLDSBK "At the beginning I was a little disappointed with the result as obviously I would have loved to stay closer to the guys ahead of me, but I learned so much this weekend," said Red Bull Honda's Jake Gagne after completing his first WorldSBK race. "The team is amazing, they're such great and smart guys! I struggled a little bit compared to yesterday's race, especially with the rear end and that caused some vibration, which caused me some problems. I had a couple of big moments and almost crashed, so I'm happy to have brought the bike back to the pit-box in one piece."