A mixed bag of results for Chaz Davies (Team GoEleven) at the Circuito Estoril culminated in the Welsh rider securing second place in Race 2 for the Gaerne Estoril Round as he secured his first podium of the 2021 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship campaign. After a difficult Friday and a Tissot Superpole session that was compromised due to yellow flags, Davies battled his way through to second place in Race 2.

On Friday, Davies completed only four laps of running in Free Practice 2 setting a best lap time for 15^th place. During the Superpole session on Saturday, Davies had just started his only run on Pirelli’s qualifying tyre when yellow flags were deployed at Turn 1 after Tito Rabat (Barni Racing Team) went off the circuit. An amended rule for this year means all lap times set when a yellow flag is deployed will be deleted and, although Davies’ did not lose his best lap time, he had used the qualifying tyre to start his lap and could not get the best out of it on a new lap.

After starting the Tissot Superpole Race from 15^th place, Davies was able to battle his way into ninth place to secure a third row start in Race 2 before using a combination of his pace and incidents for others to move up into the podium places. As the race headed towards a conclusion, Davies started catching Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team WorldSBK) but was unable to challenge for the win; Rea using the SC0 tyre and Davies the SCX.

Discussing his weekend where he recovered to take his first podium for Team GoEleven, Davies said:  It’s the best way to end what’s been a fairly difficult weekend. We’ve had our fair share of bad luck and obviously what happened in Superpole conditioned the whole weekend from the beginning. It was great to move forward in the Superpole Race and at least get myself a little bit closer to the lights and I made the best of it with a decent start.

“I got into the thick of a good group to begin with. I felt like I rode pretty well in the other races as well but that the bike was a little bit better today and just did my thing. Clearly the rhythm was pretty good, it was enough. I was running down Jonny and Scott for a time and thinking I might be able to have a little bite at them. Obviously, Scott made his mistake and then Jonny had a different tyre, where, again, he had a little bit more to play with at the end of the race.”

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