Aruba.it Ducati’s Chaz Davies put a dismal Saturday behind him to claim third in race two at Assen, but admits a lack of grip in the closing stages had him feeling as if he was ‘riding on eggshells’.
Davies bagged his first win of the year on Sunday in Aragon and was keen to carry on that momentum this weekend, after he and his crew made a big improvement with the Panigale during a test directly after the Spanish event.
Fighting all race long with Kawasaki’s Jonathan Rea, an electrical issue thwarted him on the final lap. Starting from 10th on Sunday as a result, Davies had his work cut out, not helped by a lack of feeling with his Ducati.
“I enjoyed coming back through the field, but honestly it wasn’t easy and we rode a tough race today,” he said.
“We simply didn’t have the ideal feeling, which we had both in race one and this morning in warm-up. We lacked grip on the front and it felt a bit like riding on eggshells in the last 10 laps.”
Davies made his way up to the podium places by the seventh lap, but by this point the two KRT riders had cleared off up the road and Yamaha’s Michael van der Mark was closing in at a vast rate.
The Ducati rider was able to keep the Dutchman at bay to take third place, but he is concerned as to why he struggled so much with his Panigale than he had done at any other point during the weekend.
After the disaster of Saturday, Davies moves up one spot to third in the standings with 111 points, though is some 84 points adrift of championship leader Rea. Davies hopes to close this further at Imola in two weeks, a track at which he scored the double in 2016.
“We need to address why (we struggled with front grip), either if it’s because of a set-up or the strong winds, but it was important not to crash and bring home points, as I realised quite early that third place was the best we could do today.
“Still, our goal is to win whenever possible, and hopefully we’ll have another chance at Imola, which is a special place both for me and Ducati.”
Team-mate Marco Melandri was caught out by a gust of wind rounding Turn 11 and was pushed wide, dropping him from sixth to ninth on lap nine. Whilst trying regain lost ground, he crashed at Turn 5, the Italian registering his second DNF of the season.
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