Championship pressure boils over at Assen
WorldSBK commentator Steve English looks back at an explosive weekend
The pressure cooker environment of fighting for a world championship can create a ticking time bomb in a racing paddock. On Saturday we saw this come to the fore following Superpole at the Acerbis Dutch Round of the WorldSBK championship. A fiery Parc Ferme exchange between Chaz Davies and Jonathan Rea caught the attention of everyone inside the paddock, and showed how much pressure riders put onto themselves.
The pair have spent the last three years fighting with each other on track while maintaining a mostly civil relationship. However, the tension has been simmering behind the scenes throughout the last year, and it burst out with Davies criticising Rea for blocking him while on a qualifying lap.
With such a controversial topic grabbing the attention of the paddock, Rea was given a three place grid penalty for cruising on the racing line by Race Direction, and discussion around the incident was rife.
With emotions running into the redline fans were given an indication of exactly how competitive riders are. Nicky Hayden, the 2006 MotoGP World Champion, offered an insight to WorldSBK.com into what it feels like to be in that situation.
“I don't have a dog in this title fight,” said the Kentucky native. “But I do know what it's like to fight for a title. It's normal for this kind of thing to happen and you can't expect a love fest between the riders! I'd be surprised if two guys that have been fighting for so long together that they could be a love fest.
“You can't expect guys to be happy with each other all the time and sometimes incidents like this happen. I think that after an incident like this that Chaz had a right to be upset, but I don't know exactly what he said in Parc Ferme. It happens in racing, but it's so intense to fight for a championship.”
That intensity is what makes racing such a fascinating sport. While there are few sports where a greater emphasis is placed on the team around the rider, it still boils down to one man against another and in Assen we saw that boil over.