Davies looks for a better position ahead of Monza
Straight after the race weekend at Dutch track, Assen, BMW Motorrad factory rider Chaz Davies flew directly to Munich. There, the factory rider of the BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team spent the afternoon in the wind tunnel of the BMW Group. With the next round of the 2013 eni FIM Superbike World Championship being held at Monza, Davies worked on aerodynamically optimising his riding position on his BMW S 1000 RR. This is the same process that his team mate Marco Melandri completed last year when he rode his first season on the RR. With simulated speeds up to 240 km/h, the Welshman, who stands at 1.83 metres tall, tried several different positions and body angles in order to find the ones that minimise the drag as much as possible.
"It was a really interesting afternoon", Davies confirms. "When testing on a track, you try new development parts and different settings but you are not working on your body. So it was great to experience in a stable environment with my riding position, to move myself around on the bike, to have elbows and shoulders in different positions and to then see in the data what difference it makes. I have learnt that I have to try and get myself inside the bike sooner on the exit of the corner in order to reduce the drag and be faster on the straights."
"It was good to see what difference that will make", he continues "if we can improve that for the next race. Especially on a track like Monza, the aerodynamic efficiency is very important because every lap we are wide open for much longer than any other circuit on the calendar. Having the right riding position helps me to make best use of the powerful BMW engine on the straights."
