Aruba.it Ducati’s Chaz Davies capped off a perfect weekend for himself and the Italian manufacturer by doing the double at Magny-Cours, storming to victory in the second race ahead of the Kawasaki pairing of Jonathan Rea and Tom Sykes.
The Welshman got off the line well and swooped past Sykes into Turn 1, before mugging Rea into Turn 5. But Sykes didn’t waste any time and scythed past the pair at the same corner to take the lead.
With a 44-point deficit to Rea to cut down, the Yorkshireman got the hammer down and began to extend his gap over the battling Rea and Davies over the course of the next few laps. Rea made a move stick on the Ducati rider at Turn 11 on the fifth lap and set about closing down the 1.5-second advantage Sykes had built up.
Rea took a couple of tenths per lap out of his teammate over the next six tours, Sykes’ gap whittled down to just two tenths of a second by lap 13. But the 2013 World Champion wasn’t giving up the lead without a fight, and he repelled Rea’s attacks on the brakes at Turn 5, the pair getting a little too close for comfort on several occasions.
This scrapping allowed Davies to ease his way back into contention, and neither of the Kawasaki riders could do anything to stop the Welshman coming through at Turn 5 in one fell swoop. Now in the lead, Davies immediately shot off into the distance to take the chequered flag two seconds clear for his seventh win of the season.
Behind, Rea finally found his way through on Sykes, but the Northern Irishman was unable to shake him off and Sykes stayed glued to his teammate’s back tyre all the way to the flag. His efforts, however, were in vain and Rea held onto second place to close in on his second successive title. He heads into the next round at Jerez 48 points clear, meaning he only needs to have a 50-point buffer at the end of the weekend to secure the championship.
Away from the podium fight, MV Agusta’s Leon Camier held off a race-long tussle with Honda’s Michael van der Mark to take an excellent fourth to end a strong weekend for the British rider. Ioda Aprilia’s Lorenzo Savadori completed the top six.
Pata Yamaha’s Sylvain Guintoli could do nothing to halt the advances of Althea BMW’s Jordi Torres, the Spaniard passing the home hero in the closing stages for seventh, whilst the second Honda of Nicky Hayden and Barni Racing’s Xavi Fores rounded out the top 10.
Josh Brookes made it back-to-back top 12 finishes at Magny-Cours after crossing the line a strong 11th ahead of fellow BMW rider Markus Reiterberger, whose progress in race two was hindered by a poor qualifying on Saturday. Roman Ramos, Alex De Angelis and Matthieu Lagrive were the last of the points scorers.
Karel Abraham missed out on points once again in 16th, the Czech rider leading home Gianluca Vizziello, Peter Sebestyen and Alex Lowes, who crashed with 11 laps to go whilst running 11th. Wild card Alex Plancassagne and Imre Toth were the last of the classified runners. Saeed Al Sulaiti, Matthieu Lussiana and Luca Scassa all retired from the 21-lap race.
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