RACE2;Chaz Davies takes maiden WSBK victory at Nurburgring

On the day that will seem BMW announcing that Chaz Davies (and confirmed by ParkingGO team manager Giuliano Rovelli) will joining the team next season, the Welsh rider took his maiden World Superbike in Race 2 at Nurburging in highly eventful race that saw title rivals Max Biaggi and Marco Melandri both crash.

Biaggi had regained the championship lead after race 1 and at the end of the first lap while chasing Tom Sykes and Eugene Laverty - who had gotten the holeshot. Sykes put in a hard pass on Laverty who ended up running into the gravel trap and rejoined in 6th while Biaggi who was right behind him had to overbrake to avoid him and crashed and he was able to rejoin, albeit in last place and had to scythe through the field and finish in 13th and still pick up some precious points and extend his lead to 9.5 points over Melandri.

Marco Melandri who was following in fourth after the incident inherited second place pulling with him Chaz Davies as Sykes tried to escape, but the BMW rider reeled him in an on the 8th lap and passed him to take the lead, only disaster was waiting to strike one lap later and pushing to get away the BMW rider lost the front and crashed out - getting his second DNF of the day and with all the BMW head honchos looking in what they expected to be a much better home race which became even worse as already injured Leon Haslam also crashed several laps later.

With Melandri out of the running Davies began his lonely ride to take a comfortable victory, while the second and third places went to Eugene Laverty and a hard riding Leon Camier who had duked it out during the second part of the race after disposing of a clearly struggling Tom Sykes (tire issues again) who faded from first to fifth and had to fight off the attentions of Carlos Checa in the final two laps.

Jonathan Rea who will be debuting in MotoGP next weekend finished in fourth, Checa was sixth while Davide Giugliano crossed over the finish line in a very distant seventh (more that 7 seconds behind his Althea team mate). Loris Baz pipped Ayrton Badovini for 8th on the final lap while Sylvain Guintoli closed out the top ten after battling for fourth with Laverty, Rea and Giugliano.

WSBK Nurburgring Race 2 Results:

01- Chaz Davies – ParkinGO MTC Racing – Aprilia RSV4 Factory – 20 laps in 39’00.327
02- Eugene Laverty – Aprilia Racing Team – Aprilia RSV4 Factory – + 3.022
03- Leon Camier – FIXI Crescent Suzuki – Suzuki GSX-R 1000 – + 3.222
04- Jonathan Rea – Honda World Superbike Team – Honda CBR 1000RR – + 5.705
05- Tom Sykes – Kawasaki Racing Team – Kawasaki ZX-10R – + 7.304
06- Carlos Checa – Althea Racing – Ducati 1198 – + 7.541
07- Davide Giugliano – Althea Racing – Ducati 1198 – + 14.709
08- Loris Baz – Kawasaki Racing Team – Kawasaki ZX-10R – + 19.782
09- Ayrton Badovini – BMW Motorrad Italia GoldBet – BMW S1000RR – + 19.925
10- Sylvain Guintoli – PATA Racing Team – Ducati 1198 – + 20.028

with twowheelsblog