Chaz Davies took small consolation from being able to set the fastest lap in WorldSBK race two at Aragon yesterday with a bust footrest and no rear brake after a wrong tyre choice and subsequent crash put him out of contention.

Davies started the weekend at the top of the timesheets even on day one at Motorland, despite being an Independent rider nowadays, with P2 in the first session and P1 in the second.

He told bikesportnews.com on Friday night, “I couldn’t really ask for a better start to the season,” and put it down to, “a new feeling… Yeah, in a positive way.”

Davies, like every other factory Ducati rider there has ever been, seems to have been feeling the pressure in the recent past, and maybe even some limits, as now his 2021 situation sounds like it has been a liberating experience.

It took only one day in a real race situation for Davies to understand some differences between his 2020 situation and his 2021 berth in a private team but with good equipment and help from the factory.

“I feel like I have a very tight group around me, and our bike is our bike,” said Davies. “I feel like these people are all kind of listening and working really well together to get the most out of this package. Obviously that’s the goal all the time, but sometimes it seems like there’s other influences.

When you’re in a bigger situation there’s other influences, there’s different pressures as well, but it’s more the attitude of the group for me. My working relationship with my crew chief seems very, very good.”

The language barrier, in some ways, may also have been an issue for Davies in the past. “I think it’s probably helped that it’s the English connection. For me, I never placed a value on this before because I never worked really with an English crew chief, but you know what it’s like when you’re speaking with somebody in the native tongue, you pick up on the nuances and the details of everything that I say. That matters. Those details matter. To me, that’s making a nice difference.”

He has already developed a strong relationship with Pete Jennings, his crew chief, in things other than sharing the same language. “Also it’s helped by the fact that my crew chief… his ears are open and he’s open to work with me.

Obviously we’ve been in a bit of a circle this winter. We’ve tried this, we’ve tried that. But we’ve come here and we’ve gone, right, that’s our bike. That’s our base. We had a plan already yesterday what we were going to do today with the bike and we followed it. I feel like we’ve got a good group and a good method.”

And still help from Ducati as a strong Independent team. Ducati technical boss Marco Zambenedetti was in Davies box in FP2, as he does to all but, but for more reasons for Davies than others so far. “It’s no different. He goes to every Ducati garage, so it doesn’t matter if it’s me or Rabat or Bassani or anybody. They try to look after the customer teams, but obviously we feel we should get good support if we’re strong, which we’re going to be.”

And they were until the weather reared its ugly head on Sunday. Davies took a fourth place in the sprint but choosing a wet front for the big race proved to be the wrong option.

“Today obviously was really difficult. The Superpole race was a positive result, we definitively made the right decision with tyres and we had a solid race, finishing in fourth. I was happy with that, it was a good starting position for the second Race.

“For race two, from the warm up lap I knew we have made the wrong decision with the tyres. I had to decide whether to stop immediately before the race start and put the full slick or start the race. I decided to start, but I had a wet front tyre, and at turn seven, on the very first lap I lost the front.

“Exactly why I am not sure, I could have been a little bit on an extra wet path, or even that the front tyre wasn’t fully up to working temperature and it scrubbed. But anyway I crashed unfortunately.

“I picked up the bike, I went to the garage, I put the slick on, then I just tried to enjoy the seventeen laps. I just got the small consolation to get the best lap of the race and the pace wasn’t so bad. I just obviously wished that I made the decision to start on slicks.

“Today it was a really difficult day, it was really easy to be the hero or the zero and we were both today, in the Superpole race, zero in the main race. Anyway it has been good to enjoy the weekend with the team, thanks for the effort and look forward to Estoril next week.”