Davies' latest podium a reward for earlier bad luck
It has been a noticeable aspect of the 2012 eni FIM Superbike World Championship that some of the rookie riders have been able to mix it with the established stars on an increasingly consistent basis. One of those rookie riders is Welshman Chaz Davies (ParkinGO MTC Racing Aprilia) who scored his second podium in this class last weekend in Russia, taking third in race two after falling due to a collision with another rider in an eventful first race.
A really tough SBK start for Davies, despite showing true pace on occasions, left him in 23rd place in the rankings after the fourth round at Monza. More recently, some much more consistent, and simply stronger, results have now pushed him to 11th in the rankings after 11 rounds.
Davies has a good call on being even more impressive than the speedy Davide Giugliano (Althea Racing Ducati) so far, as Davies' team is really new to the SBK game, even if they were Supersport World Champions in 2011. This one-rider ParkinGO team has adapted well to the sometimes-tricky Aprilia RSV4-satellite machine and even though Davies does not often qualify well he is usually on the pace of the leaders in races.
His first podium at Motorland Aragon was all his own work but Davies freely admits that there was an element of luck involved at Moscow Raceway, when third came long when two other riders up front collided, and another ran wide, allowing Chaz to pass and take his second third place of the year. Said Davies, "It was an unexpected podium, although I did keep pushing in case something did happen. We have had that many things go against us it feels something like redemption! Our pace was good in race two but I first got involved with Loris Baz for a lap or two and lost probably the best part of one or two seconds. Then I caught my way back up to the group again. Then I had another false neutral, which I had in the first race before I crashed. I lost another second and a half and that was about my pace then. I had just started to lose touch and had lost the front a few times. I am not sure if I could have got away with a softer front tyre today, which could have helped a little bit."
Having missed out on going further than Tissot-Superpole One, and qualifying on the fourth row as a result, Davies had a lot of work to do in both races, just to get near the front. Tantalisingly, in the points Davies is only half a point behind another impressive rider making a play for the unofficial title of best rookie of the year, Davide Giugliano.
