Chaz Davies
When I left you folks last time, I’d just got the go ahead to race at Laguna Seca. When I got home from Misano, I’d had two sessions of physio a day, a couple of hours each per session on average, one in the morning and one in the evening. And this was every day until I flew to the USA.
I went to Laguna in a bit of pain but by the end was feeling a lot better! The gauge was every time I finished a session I’d go to put on my shoes while stood up. That was the worst when I tried to double over, as I’d feel the most amount of pain. The first few days I couldn’t bend over to do that without it being really painful and a struggle. By the end of the weekend I could just about do it and only feel a little awkward. So much so, that I changed my flight to stay in the USA a bit longer, and have a brief jaunt into Canada too.
Anyway, having not done a great deal the first few sessions on the bike on Friday were a little difficult, but it was getting better and I was quickest overall. By Saturday and Sunday it was much better, but with speed and setup we were in the ballpark. Last year I was fighting the bike a lot, this time around things were different.
I made the front row in qualifying, and in the first race me and Jonny Rea passed each other a few times before I managed to haul Tom Sykes in. I put a move on Tom at the Corkscrew, and not wanting to let me vanish Jonny went through at the same time. But he then paced me for the rest of the race; I was expecting a ding-dong for the last five laps, but I was able to hold my pace for every lap while his just dropped off a bit. So, yeah, went on to win!
It was a special victory, a really special one after the injury. Every win is amazing and important but this even more so for different reasons.
Race two wasn’t quite as good, a couple of odd things were going on in the first few laps and it took me a while to get past Xavi Fores. By the time I did Tom and Jonny were gone. I did manage to reel Tom in but not with enough time to make a pass.
The reverse grid thing has worked against me a couple of times now, but there’s no one else to blame but myself. Usually I can get through okay, but now and then I haven’t managed to as it’s easy to throw a race away trying to be too aggressive. Ah well...
Ducati revealed the Panigale FE at Laguna, and me and Marco did the promo for it a month before at Mugello. It’s really cool, it surprised me by how fast it was, it was even lifting the front while flat out at the end of the straight! I’m glad we’ll be racing the Panigale again next year too, especially as every other Ducati superbike has won a world title. So I’ll get another chance of that while they develop the V4 for 2019.
Now then, all of this ‘turn WSB into a Superstock series’ talk, I’m not a fan of that at all. That would take something away from it for me, I don’t want to race Superstock machines – but – I’m also not sure where all this super-special nonsense is coming from either. The fact is WSB bikes have never been more ‘stock’ than they are right now. We’re nowhere near the tuning levels WSB used to employ. Even our electronics, while very adjustable, trickle down to the road bikes and something like a control ECU will stop that, WSB is the last place manufacturers can develop electronics for production bikes at the highest level. Whatever they do, there needs to be something to make it special or it’ll just come down to the manufacturer with the newest bike winning. And then what happens to the Superstock series? And all because Ducati and Kawasaki are doing so well the last couple of years.
I won’t argue that they need to do something to bring the other teams closer to our level, though I think Yamaha are pretty much there. Honda need a bit of time and help, too, as do some other teams. But look at Barni Ducati, that’s a fully private effort and they get the same electronics as we do (as does any team with any manufacturer in WSB due to the rules), the same updates, and they are doing really well. How can you get any fairer than that? There’s different angles at play here, what Dorna wants, what the teams want and what the manufacturers want, and nobody is on the same page. So, I agree things must change, but not by ruining WSB in the process. Till next month!