GoldBet BMW’s Chaz Davies had an afternoon he would rather forget, after he crashed his bike at Lesmo 2 with 30 minutes remaining,of the World Superbike qualifying practice, which prematurely ended his session.

The Welshman was riding high at the top of the time-sheets and did set the second quickest lap time on his second lap, but during his sixth time around the Monza circuit he crashed. The rider did not make it back on to the track after severely damaging his bike, but even though he was unhurt he is still frustrated by the whole experience.

“It has not been a particularly productive day. The rain was one thing and the delay another, but a crash so early in the weekend is frustrating. The track was probably not completely clean. I lost the front but I saved it, but then I think I hit some bumps and the front went again. At one point I thought I would save it but it was too close to the outside of the circuit and unfortunately I had a big crash,” said Davies.

“Until then my times had been good and the bike felt pretty good. I could have done with a few more laps just to get a feel for it, but then I crashed and did not manage to get back out. So tomorrow, I need a little bit of more track time to catch up but if the weather is good then it should be fine.”

Technical Director, Andrea Dosoli sympathises with Davies, and the team are confident that they will have enough time to set up his bike for Superpole tomorrow afternoon.

“We are sorry for Chaz. His initial feeling for the bike was fine and he was improving, but unfortunately he had a big crash in the first of the Lesmo corners when he lost the front. Thus, he lost the opportunity to further work on his bike in dry conditions but we are confident that tomorrow the weather will help us and that he will have enough time to set his RR up for Superpole. It is also a case of some fine tuning of the settings for him as his overall feeling on the bike was pretty good,” said Dosoli.