VOL. 54 ISSUE 37 SEPTEMBER 19, 2017 P37
finger and his left radius bone, at
the wrist end.
Davies was mystified by his
own crash while cruising to
second in race two. But crash he
did and lost a chance to overhaul
Sykes for second at the first op-
portunity.
"Our bike has been a bit tricky
here towards the end of the
race," he said after race two. "On
and off the gas the transfer has
been quite abrupt. I kind of knew
that so it is not the reason why I
crashed."
There were two podium
outings for the other full fac-
tory Ducati, for Marco Melandri,
despite his very unstable bike in
race two. He had a great fight
with the V4 of Eugene Laverty
(Milwaukee Aprilia), as they have
no love lost after Laverty had to
make way for Melandri years ago
in the official Aprilia team.
Fourth was Laverty's best ride
of the year on a bike that is finally
making progress to its glorious
past, and then all it has to do is
catch up to the current two best
bikes in class, from Kawasaki and
Ducati.
Also Yamaha is moving up.
The whole Yamaha project
took something of a step forward
at this race according to first time
podium man on his R1, Michal
van der Mark. His first non-Honda
podium in WorldSBK was his 10th
in total, and it was even a second
place, not a third.
Other Yamaha rider Alex
Lowes would have a luckless, no-
scoring double in Portugal, but
he had already taken two podi-
ums this year so it was important
for VDM to join that club sooner
rather than later. And for sure
before he heads off to ride Val-
entino Rossi's MotoGP bike next
weekend, at Motorland Aragon.
First up for almost all top riders
is the small matter of a test at Por-
timao, one day after the race.
On a weekend when some
like Aprilia and Yamaha stepped
up, so did the perennial under-
dogs who bark more loudly and
sometimes bite hard, as well—MV
Agusta Reparto Corse.
Leon Camier had a season-
best fourth in race one, and
came so close to a podium it
must have hurt. He was hunting
Melandri and ended up less than
0.4 of a second from what would
have been a famous first MV
podium.
WorldSSP
Kenan Sofuoglu (Kawasaki Puc-
cetti Racing) showed why he is
always the man to beat in the
World SSP Championship lineup
by winning his fifth race of the
year, and then taking over the
championship lead for the first
time, too.
Jonathan Rea had it all go his way
at the WorldSBK round in Portugal.
He won both legs and could clinch
the 2017 championship three rounds
early at the next race in France.
PHOTOGRAPHY
BY
GOLD
&
GOOSE
