Chaz Davies ..................................
Ever arranged a wedding? I’m sure many of you have, and know just how much fun it is to sort the joyous occasion! I’m just on my way back to the UK now to carry on arranging mine and Hatt’s, which will be in December. Seemed like a good time to fill seeing as testing is banned at that point!
We got engaged the other Christmas (after a 12 year testing period, it seemed the right thing to do...), but we weren’t sure when to actually do it. We made the decision to get it nailed this year so pulled the pin. And now the fun starts, yay!
Anyway, we have had a round break up our silly long summer hols, but nice to have a free month either side of it. It was good to break it up (and remind people the series was still happening…) and get back on the bike, but before that I had an awesome event at Mugello for Superleggera owners (while also getting a week’s holiday in around lake Garda). It was really cool as there was a huge mix of people from the 500 who had bought one, and they all got the opportunity to ride my WSB machine and every single one had a massive grin on their face!
They got to ride the standard Panigale, then the 1299 S, then the 1299 FE, their own Superleggera and finally my (or Marco’s) bike. It’s a great way of Ducati rewarding their custom I think as it’s such an expensive bike to start with. I also got to blat around on a Superleggera a lot too, in between chatting with the customers. It was such a great bike, it’s got some go, it doesn’t rev quite as much as my WSB bike but it’s almost on a par speed-wise.
It was interesting talking with what people did with theirs. For some it was just a track bike, for others it was to be polished and loved, and then there were those who rode it every week. It was a shame I didn’t push the FE edition hard when I rode it, like I did with the Super’ as I would have liked to do a comparison. I’m not sure if it’s the wealth of carbon in the Super’ but it soaks up bumps so well, and it’s very noticeably light. In fact, Marco (Melandri) went bonkers on one, and was only twoseconds off his best time testing at Mugello on his WSB machine, riding the Super’! He didn’t even have slicks, just the road Pirelli Supercorsa SPs! That alone tells you how good the bike is and, yeah, it’s pretty special. I have a road bike this year too, a Multistrada Enduro, and I’ve done some off-roading through the Pyrenees on it so far. I’d like to do a bit of a camping trip on it, stick a tent on the back, fill the panniers up and dive into the wild for a few days. I’m going to try and do that after Portimao’s round I reckon.
But as I said we did some racing, at Lausitzring for the last time. Practice went okay, I think. We were there or thereabouts, though qualifying was a bit pants. I thought the lap was safe, but it was only good enough for sixth! Still, managed to nail the races just fine in the end and felt really good with the pace. It was a fast pace, really quick, the first race was 12 seconds faster than last year’s win, and the second race was another five seconds quicker than that – and that was coming from ninth on the grid. Jonny Rea was pushing hard too, especially in the second race, and it’s good to be chased like that and get the best out of the bike and tyres at the same time. Having a big buffer is always nice as you can control a race, but he was only ever a few tenths behind me, which made two wins even more satisfying.
I’m pretty confident for Portimao too, even though we’ve not had much luck there in the past. I’ve also got to congratulate our GP team for playing a very smart game, Andrea’s wins in Austria and Silverstone were really impressive. I also think it’s entirely possible he could win the world title, but it’ll be hard and much will depend on what happens with Marquez, seeing just how much he puts it on the line, and how often. It’ll certainly be fun watching what happens, right?