Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) had a tough start to his home round at Donington Park, ending day one in fifth position and with more work to do in order to decrease the gap to the top.

Following a stunning performance last time out around Imola, Davies is hoping to continue this pace in the sunny UK and is just missing a final few tenths to make up the distance to the leaders. Setting a lap time of 1.28.139 on the Friday at Donington, the Welsh rider is looking at his chassis balance as well as electronics to bridge the gap.

Stepping on the podium at Donington Park in 2016, Davies is not far off the front runners as they head into an all important Saturday: “It was so/so, it wasn’t an awesome day but we’re not too far away. All the lap times are quite close, we just need to work on stability a little bit and try to improve the feeling. I need to see if I can find some changes to the package, to improve some slightly different lines and what I need to work on. We’re working on trying to sort the chassis balance and sort some electronics out, and we’ve got a fresher engine coming in tomorrow, so that will give us a couple of tenths too.”

Watch Davies fight for pole position and then onto the podium on Saturday, as on track action starts from 09:05 LT.