Motorland Aragon, Spain – Chaz Davies has finally broken the Kawasaki domination of World Superbike racing with a dazzling double win on the factory Ducati at the rollercoaster Motorland Aragon circuit in Western Spain.
Cape Town’s David ‘McFlash’ McFadden kept the South African flag lying with a hard-fought 17th in the Superstock 1000 race, his first outing on the privateer Agro On-Benjan-Kawasaki.
RACE 1
Superpole winner Tom Sykes got a perfect start to lead off the line, with works Kawasaki team-mate Jonathan Rea rocketing away from fifth on the grid to slot into third behind Sylvain Guintoli’s Yamaha.
But the defending world champion had the Ducatis of Davies and Davide Giugliano all over him right from the start and, as soon as Davies got by, he set about reeling the two leaders. With 15 laps to go, he took over the lead from Sykes and was never headed, finishing four seconds clear of what became an intense fight for second between the Kawasaki team-mates.
Guintoli challenged Davies with impressive pace in the early stages but dropped back as the race went on to finish ninth, behind his Yamaha team-mate Alex Lowes, who fought back to eighth after a disastrous start.
Xavi Forés was the fastest home rider on his 1199 Panigale R; he took the fight to fellow Ducati rider Giugliano to clinch fourth. Honda factory pair Nicky Hayden and Michael van der Mark, after a disastrous qualifying where Van der Mark crashed right in front of Hayden, wrecking the former MotoGP world champion’s hot lap and relegating them both to the fourth row of the grid, were working their way back up the grid when Van der Mark crashed out again.
That left Hayden to bring home some consolation points with a sixth-place finish after chasing down the Yamaha of Guintoli and Ducati of Giugliano in the closing stages.
Jordi Torres fought his way up the grid to finish seventh, just ahead of the two works Yamahas, with Aprilia newbie Lorenzo Savadori rounding out the top 10.
RACE 2
Davies took another emphatic win, coming 6.471 seconds clear of the nearest bike on track, while Kawasaki pair Sykes and Rea completed the podium after another race-long battle.
Local hero Forés took his privateer Ducati Panigale R into fourth again, equaling his career-best result of the day before, while compatriot Torres achieved his best result of the year with fifth on the new BMW ahead of Giugliano’s works Ducati – the first BMW home by an impressive margin.
Giugliano came back for a near-crash to re-pass Van der Mark, who’d been mixing I it with the best after a good start from 11th on the grid, but was unable to hold off Torres and Giugliano by the end of the race.
Van der Mark’s Honda team-mate Hayden dropped down through the order with Yamaha’s Alex Lowes after an incident on track, eventually retiring with a mechanical problem.
WORLD SUPERSPORTS
Reigning champion Kenan Sofuoglu delivered a master class in racecraft at Motorland Aragon, slashing the championship lead of his Kawasaki team-mate Randy Krummenacher as fellow contender Jules Cluzel struggled to find pace on the factory MV Agusta, coming home fourth behind MV Agusta privateer, home rider Nico Terol, who scored his first World Supersport podium.
Pole sitter Sofuoglu got the holeshot, with Honda rider PJ Jacobsen in close attendance after a great start for the American. He then tried to dive through attacked for the lead when Sofuoglu ran wide, only to lose the front and slide out of the race.
A multi-rider incident at Turn 1 saw debris litter the run-off area as Aiden Wagner (MV Agusta) Angelo Licciardi (Kawasaki), Gino Rea (MV Agusta) and Javier Orellana (Honda) all found themselves suffering the same fate as Jacobsen.
Then MV Agusta rider Lorenzo Zanetti had to pull off the circuit with a technical problem, as Sofuoglu began to pull away in the lead from Cluzel, Krummenacher and Alex Baldolini – until a plume of black smoke from the back of Baldolini’s MV Agusta announced the end of his race.
Krummenacher retained his points lead adding another 20 and forcing team-mate Sofuoglu to play catch up when the action starts again in two weeks at Assen.
SUPERSTOCK 1000
After a Turn1 pile-up that saw almost a third of the field scattered across the run-off area brought out the red flags, the second start also saw a high rate of attrition.
Nine riders were unable to make it back on to the circuit in time for the new quick restart procedure, while Ducati rider Marco Faccani discovered a technical problem on the way back to the grid and had to withdraw.
Then pole-sitter Florian Marino found hiself with a box full of neutrals on lap two and dropped back to 10th, while the factory Ducatis of Leandro Mercado and rookie team-mate Michael Ruben Rinaldi broke away.
Mercado came home for a resounding Bologna one-two, with Raffaele de Rosa third on a BMW, ahead of the two Yamahas of Russo and Marino, after splendid fightback by Marino.
McFlash qualified 25th, 2.7 seconds off the pace, started 19 at the restart and improved to 17th by the end, after a difficult weekend.