Aruba.it Ducati’s Chaz Davies says he is looking forward to this weekend’s Dutch round of the World Superbike Championship, after the Welshman made a step forward with his Panigale at a test in Aragon.
Davies’ title aspirations took a knock last time out in Aragon when he crashed out of the lead of the opening race. This saw Jonathan Rea notch up his fifth win of the year and left Davies with a mountain to climb.
On Sunday’s outing, Davies battled a difficult Panigale to secure his first win of the year and pull five points back on Rea. He now sits 50 points adrift in second and knows nothing less than victory will do now.
Despite the set back in Spain, a post-race test allowed Davies to evaluate some new parts which proved positive additions, and he comes into the Dutch round confident of a strong showing.
“I’m looking forward to this weekend, especially as I think we’ve made some good improvements in the post-race tests at Aragon,” said Davies.
“It’s going to be another opportunity to evaluate the parts that we’ve introduced and seemed to work really well in Spain.
“Assen is a completely different circuit, so it will be a good test. Anyway, I’m confident we’ve made another step forward.”
The Ducati rider has a decent record at Assen, Davies winning the 2011 World Supersport race, and securing three seconds in the last four races at the circuit. However, he is yet to taste victory in Holland in the Superbike class.
Davies feels his pace on the Panigale in the dry at Assen is strong enough to see him carry on his momentum from Aragon’s second race, and has even learned from his strategy error during last year’s flag-to-flag Sunday outing, which cost him a shot at the win, should the weather take a grim turn.
“I’ve had pretty goof results at Assen in the past couple of years,” he continued.
“We had a good pace in dry conditions, but the weather is always a question mark and last year we made a strategic mistake in flag-to-flag conditions.
“But we learned from it, so we’re keen to pick up from where we left off at Aragon.”
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