Chaz Davies guided his Aruba.it Ducati Panigale from pole position to a sensational fifth win of the 2016 season in race one at the Lausitzring, dominating from lights to flag.
The Welshman took the holeshot into Turn 1 and immediately began to break away from the KRT duo of Tom Sykes and the fast-starting Jonathan Rea. Davies set a new circuit record on lap two with a 1m37.357, never straying more than half a second off of that time throughout the remaining 19 laps.
By lap three he’d extended his advantage already to nearly two seconds, steadily stretching that gap out to over 10 second by the time he reached the chequered flag, Davies becoming the first rider of the current crop to win three races in Germany for three different manufacturers.
Though the fight for the victory was already over by the end of the first lap, the battle behind was a dramatic one. Sykes knew that he had to beat his teammate in order to keep his championship aspirations alive, but that looked like a tall order in the early stages as Rea was right behind the Yorkshireman.
However, with 15 laps to go, the championship fight was blown wide open after Rea, for the second successive race, retired. A mechanical problem caused the Irishman to crash out at Turn 10, allowing Sykes to close the gap in the standings to just 26 points with seven races left.
Twitter: Drama at #GermanWorldSBK!!
@jonathanrea is down at turn 8!
#GermanWorldSBK https://t.co/QsLrBnHs9S (@WorldSBK)
Sykes held onto second at the flag, though came under a bit of pressure from Honda’s Nicky Hayden, who will be left ruing a poor start from third on the grid. By the end of the first lap, the former MotoGP World Champion had plummeted to seventh but soon began scything his way through the field. With Rea crashing out and the luckless Lorenzo Savadori hitting the deck just a lap later whilst running third, Hayden was handed his fourth podium of the season.
Althea BMW’s Jordi Torres finished the manufacturer’s first WorldSBK race at the Lausitzring an impressive fourth, narrowly holding off a hard-charging Leon Camier on the MV Agusta. Michael van der Mark, on the second of the Ten Kate Hondas, completed the top six.
Davide Giugliano struggled all race with his bike’s brakes and crossed the line a disappointing seventh, ahead of the two Pata Yamahas of Alex Lowes and Sylvain Guintoli, with Barni Racing’s Xavi Fores rounding out the top 10.
Ant West rose from 16th to 11th during the 21-lap race to beat Ioda’s Alex De Angelis, Roman Ramos, Josh Brookes and Luca Scassa. Dominic Schmitter, Pawel Szkopek, Peter Sebestyen and Gianluca Vizziello were the last of the classified finishers. Rea and Savadori were joined on the sidelines by Saeed Al Sulaiti, Markus Reiterberger and Karel Abraham.
The second race from the Lausitzring takes place tomorrow from 13:00 local time.
See picture below for full race one results.
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