Lausitz WorldSBK race one winner Chaz Davies’ almost didn’t make it to the grid in Germany this lunchtime after a near-crash on the last corner of the sighting lap.

The Aruba Ducati man’s rear brake malfunctioned and then spewed fluid on to his rear tyre as he rode around to form up for the start and the Panigale did its best to ping him off at the last corner.

“The sighting lap was pandemonium, I nearly high-sided going into the last corner because of an issue with the rear brake. That made for a few tense minutes on the grid, because usually you can’t fix something like that in such a short time, but I have a good crew and they fixed to almost entirely, so it was good enough to allow me to do what I needed to do,” said Davies.

“Then, I got a great start and found myself in a good position in the early laps. Once I took the lead, I just tried to set my pace without looking at the lap times and we came out on top. The rhythm was good, but there is still room for improvement ahead of race two. We’ll start from 9th position but I think this track offers opportunities for overtaking and we’ve worked on our starts recently, finding more consistency, so I’m in for another interesting race.”