Britain's Chaz Davies says he is encouraged by the performance of his Aprilia RSV at the tight and twist Infineon Raceway last weekend, equalling his best-placed finish of fourth in the Daytona Sportbike class.
Dvies was immediately fast from the beginning of the weekend and the team had high hopes for a podium finish in what many thought would be the worst track for the Aprilia RSV1000R. He qualified in Superpole in the third position with a time of 1:40.010, only a tenth of a second shy of second place.
Race one didn’t start off as planned when Davies' team-mate Ben Thompson crashed on lap one in turn two with a huge highside. Fortunately, Thompson was virtually un-injured but his Aprilia RSV1000R was destroyed. Davies missed the first lap incident and was running up front with the lead group. Chaz spent most of the race in third place, but was passed by Hacking with a handful of laps to go leaving the Welshman fourth on the final lap. This is the team's second top five in a row.
The Millennium Technologies sponsored Aprilia team worked hard Saturday night to come up with a solution that would allow Davies to move up to a coveted podium position and to repair Thompson’s damaged RSV1000R.
It appeared that the set-up changes worked early in Sunday’s Daytona SportBike race two when Davies was able to turn the fastest lap of the race. Again, Davies was right there with the lead group but on lap six his Aprilia RSV1000R overheated and he was forced to pull out of the race. Thompson continued his streak of terrible luck when he was taken out early by another rider.
“Although the weekend didn’t end the way we wanted, it was actually very encouraging that the bike worked as well as it did at this track. Infineon is a very tight track that rewards a nimble, lightweight bike and the KWS Motorsport team has done a wonderful job to make the Aprilia RSV1000R competitive here. I am very much looking forward to Road America. Thanks to Rocky Stargel, Jimmy Le, and the rest of the team for all their hard work this weekend," said Davies.
