Chaz Davies missed an ‘easy podium’ in Sunday’s second World Superbike race from Portimao after he relaxed too much in the closing stages and crashed.
The Welshman fought his way through from ninth in race one after a crash in qualifying to take second and close to within 15 points of the absent second-placed Tom Sykes in the standings.
Davies had come through the pack again on Sunday from eighth on the grid, and by lap seven was up to second.
With eventual double race winner Jonathan Rea too far up the road, Davies settled into runner-up spot.
Having backed off the pace with three laps to go, Davies admits he eased off a little too much into Turn 2 and folded the front-end of his Panigale, which took him by surprise.
“It’s disappointing to finish the race like that because we’ve missed an easy podium,” the Welshman said.
“Our pace was OK, we were holding station with Rea without pushing over the top, but towards the end I relaxed a little and closed the throttle a bit earlier than usual going into Turn 2, which ended up loading the front too much, and I went down.
“I was surprised because it’s a strange place to crash, especially when you feel like you’re cruising.”
Despite the crash, Davies felt the team made a step forward with his bike fron Saturday, and will work on improving the stability of his Panigale in the latter stages of a race during Monday’s test at the Algarve track.
“We’ve definitely made improvements today, but we still want to make another step forward in terms of stability at the end of the race, something we will work on tomorrow.
“Looking at the positives, we’ve closed in to second position in the championship, due to Tom’s misfortune, and with him back we should have an interesting end to the season, so I’m looking forward to the next round.”
