Chaz Davies reckons the Imola round of the 2017 World Superbike Championship heralded the first time Ducati could have been considered the benchmark team, as the Welshman grabbed a dominant double at the Italian circuit.
The weekend got off to a superb start, Davies leading the way after Friday practice and carrying that form over into qualifying to take his second pole of the season. Davies went on to dominate race one, taking the chequered flag almost six seconds clear of Jonathan Rea.
“For the first time this year, I feel we’ve been the benchmark from the beginning,” said Davies.
“We were able to find our rhythm on Friday, and it sort of snowballed from there. The team has done an awesome job, the bike worked superbly in both races, in different conditions, but today it was quite interesting.”
Coming from ninth on the grid in Sunday’s outing, Davies got roughed up at the start and was stuck in his starting position, whilst main rival Rea was able to carve his way through the pack to the podium places by the end of the opening lap.
A red flag for an oil spill allowed Davies to regroup, and he made the most of his second chance, guiding his Panigale up into the top five by the end of the first tour. Moving up to third after team-mate Marco Melandri ran off track at the Turn 14 chicane, Davies soon found himself second when Leon Camier crashed out.
Despite the clear track and a bike working well underneath him, race leader Tom Sykes’ pace forced the Ducati rider to dig deep. Setting a fastest lap of 1m46.720s on his sixth lap, Davies had gotten the gap to the Kawasaki rider down to just 0.3s as the seventh lap drew to a close.
He made a move stick into the final corner on the same tour and proceeded to ease off into the distance to wrap up his third win of the year, clawing a further five points back on Rea in the standings to close the gap to 74 points heading to Donington.
“We got mixed up at the first start, but after the restart we got a good launch and I was able to make some good moves that put us in a good position,” explained Davies.
“Sykes’ pace was strong, so I had to put my head down to hunt him and, once I caught him, I was able to set my won pace and that was good enough.
“Thanks to all the Italian fans for showing up this weekend; their push was something special.”
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