Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/863949
IN THE WIND P42 DAVIES CRACKS OPEN A DOUBLE T he vast Lausitzring facility in eastern Germany is a strange racetrack in many ways, and it was a strange WorldSBK race weekend over August 18-29 in lots of ways, too. Maybe the strangest thing to witness was Chaz Davies and his Aruba.it Racing Ducati winning not just the first race (after qualifying in sixth) but also the second race, at an even faster pace. Davies won each race not by miles, but clearly and cleanly, the first by 1.834 seconds and the second by 2.290 seconds, even if it is all too late to real- istically do anything about the championship itself. The race pace in Germany was fast, incredibly so consider- ing how much of Friday was lost to delays and then heavy rain. Race two was even four seconds faster than race one. Many had tested here, but the conditions were different. Davies nearly never got started in the first race, as he found fluid on his back tire and it turned out to be a brake prob- lem—nothing minor. "I nearly crashed on the sight- ing lap, in the final corner," he said. "I went in slow and lost the rear and I thought that the race was finished before it started. I had no rear thumb brake. Thankfully, my mechanics can work quickly and they managed to get the brake working 80-90 percent. It was not perfect, but useable, so thanks to them for that." He went on to win, but said after the opener, "The Saturday race was fast. And it was about what I expected. I did not see myself disappearing, for sure." On Sunday, Davies was proud to have won despite Rea making a great start, with both riders off the third row under the new grid rules that put the race-one po- dium finishers on the third rank for race two. Davies was over three sec- onds faster in the second race than the first, and an effective double winner. The Ducati and Kawasaki rid- ers monopolized the podiums again, but this time it was Super- pole sensation Tom Sykes (KRT) who was a disappointed third in race one, and Ducati's Marco Melandri a happier third in race two. That leaves Jonathan Rea, who took another two confident steps to becoming a first-ever WorldSBK consecutive triple world champion, with two sec- ond places in Germany. They were very hard-earned at this round as Rea and his bike did not mesh with the track at all, and he had to wrestle it against a lack of grip on the right side of his rear tire race one and general lack of rear corner entry grip in race two. He looked tired but left satis- fied. "As soon as I started to lose entry-traction the bike became very physical to ride," Rea said. "I was manhandling the bike and this is such a bumpy track. I am happy with the results from this weekend as the bike has never really worked that well here and we were on the back foot on Friday."