Aruba.it Ducati’s Chaz Davies endured a frustrating first day at MotorLand Aragon, after an engine issue robbed him of crucial track time in the morning.
Davies comes into this weekend as one of the pre-race favourites. The Welshman has five wins to his credit at Aragon, including two doubles, one of which coming last year. 30 points adrift of the championship lead, Davies desperately needs a strong weekend.
Five minutes into this morning’s first practice, Davies was forced to push his bike down pit lane after suffering a problem with the motor in his Panigale R.
Despite the best efforts of his team, Davies could only get back out for a lap as his woes persisted. As a result, he headed into the second session with even more work to do.
“Unfortunately, we suffered a technical problem in FP1, which resulted in basically one hour less of track time for us,” said Davies.
“Thankfully, my mechanics are very prepared and were capable of substituting the engine in very little time, but we basically had to play catch-up.”
Mercifully, Davies’ motorcycle didn’t cause him any problems in FP2, and managed 20 laps as he worked on trying to find a solid set-up and some consistency. This did, however, mean he was unable to do a race simulation.
Languishing at the back of the field coming into the session, Davies was able to hop up the order to a respectable fourth with a 1m50.383s, putting his just over three tenth away from Friday’s fastest man Jonathan Rea.
Though making solid progress in FP2 considering the lack of track time, Davies admits that the bike still isn’t perfect, particularly when changing direction and in the middle of corners. He hopes to get on top of this in tomorrow’s 25-minute FP3.
“In the afternoon I simply tried to find my rhythm and start working on the set-up, but we couldn’t do a long run to better understand tyre wear.
“Honestly, I still don’t feel 100 percent. We climbed back and ended up not far from the top, but we still need to improve, especially in changes of direction and mid-corner handling.
“We’ll try to make the most of FP3 to be ready come race time.”
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