In WorldSBK 2021-style the difference between the true factory bikes and the Independent Team bikes is very small, and in Chaz Davies’ case, he is more or less a third official rider, albeit in the GoEleven team.
An Independent rider has podiumed already in 2021, but only in the shape of Garrett Gerloff at Motorland, that one time.
Davies doubled up for the Indie band members with second place finish in race two at Estoril, recovering from some shocking bad luck in the earlier stages of the weekend, having to start from 15th in the first two races. Ninth off the grid in race two was a much more comfortable piece of asphalt real estate to build podium dreams from.
Rea in front of him in the second feature race, Davies took advantage of the misfortunes of others, as third placed Razgatlioglu had two long lap penalties to take, Redding crashed out of second place, and Gerloff took out Rinaldi very early in the contest.nBut for a ‘privateer’ in 2021, second is still a strong result, however they come.
“Good to finish the weekend like that because we had obviously a bit of bad luck yesterday,” Davies told bikesportnews.com. “It was really good to finish like that and just have a solid race. Didn’t get caught up in too much drama. I got a better start than the first two races even if I was starting in a better position anyway. So, overall, very happy with that.”
The track conditions were getting greasy in the mid-40°C range, and Davies noticed enough to ease up at times. “It felt greasy - it did feel greasy. The front and rear were both giving me a lot of signs mid-corner here and the left. I had to step back a couple of times on the mid-corner maximum lean.
"It was just trying to get the best out of it. Obviously when the tyre was dropping, dropping, dropping and I could see that Jonathan was having less difficulties in the last part of the track, the long, long corners where you need to be able to use the tyre a little bit. I think the X wasn’t capable of that sort of abuse at the end of the race. But still, good.”
Davies was more or less stuck on his SCX rear tyre choice, it appears. SC0 was not feasible for him. “I don't think so, no,” he explained. “Especially after missing FP2. I could see that the X was working in FP2 for the others. I just sort of set my mind to it. I just said, that will be our tyre now. Because I haven’t got data myself. I can only rely on what I’m seeing from not just other people in Ducati but the majority of the group.
It seemed to be only the Kawasaki that was making the zero work or doing enough with it to be able to be in a good condition at the end of the race. It’s pretty clear that if we want to have the same performance at the end of the race using the zero, then we need to work better to generate grip in the early laps because that would be the difficulty for us.”
Davies understood that second was probably his best place after all the other dramas and the small but eventually growing gap to Rea. But with Rea on a zero, dreams of last years astounding final Ducati factory race bike win were just out of reach.
“I wasn’t too sure because I knew Jonathan would be on the zero,” said Davies. “So I was trying to get to him, and then hoping to disrupt him a bit. It’s just that last sector. I could take a bit in sector one, sector two not so much, sometimes sector three. I could take a little bit here or there and not lose. Then the last sector, you can just see the difference on television.
"I saw Alex coming out of there on Friday and the way that it was hooking and how upright he was with the bike. Nobody else was actually doing that or able to do that. So, it’s obviously their strength. They’ve got something there that’s a little bit more than everybody else at the minute. It’s an area where we need to work. It’s a historic area for us, a historic problem area where it’s a long corner where we suffer a little bit more.”
