Aruba.it Ducati's Chaz Davies was luckily unscathed when his Panigale went up in flames during the second World Superbike free practice session at Donington Park this afternoon. He had only been out on track for a handful of minutes when something pierced a hole in the fuel tank causing fuel to leak everywhere, and his bike turned into a ball of fire.
His machine experienced extensive damage, meaning that Davies had to miss out on the rest of the session and on valuable track time too. The Welshman had already done enough in FP1 to warrant a place in qualifying in Superpole two and a chance to challenge for pole after a 1'28.871 lap, which placed him fifth on the combined timesheets.
But in a way Davies wishes that he did drop out of the top ten, and that way he would get a little bit extra time out on the circuit, to make up for the time lost today. The former World Supersport champion had never experienced anything like he did onboard his bike today, and he hopes it never happens again.
"Today was a bit crazy, we started off this morning having a normal free practice and then this afternoon we were just getting going in free practice two and then I felt something slightly amiss before the problem occurred. Before I knew it I saw the flames up around my legs," said Davies, speaking to bikesportnews.com this evening.
"I tried to get the bike to the wall and jumped of it gracefully but it just started going up in a massive ball of flames too quickly. It is never nice seeing your bike burn to the ground like that in a situation I have never been in before, and it is just one of those things and hopefully it will never happen again.
"Something pierced the hole in the fuel tank and obviously through the amount of heat the bike puts out the fuel leaked and it went everywhere. Then it went up in flames but thankfully no burns to report and unfortunately the bike did not come out of it as well as I have.
"The time this morning was good enough to put me through to Superpole two which is important for tomorrow. But actually on the other hand because of the track time that I missed today which was a valuable forty minutes I was kind of hoping I might not make it through to Superpole two just to give me an extra twenty minutes tomorrow, just to make up for the time that I missed today."
