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A second place that was worth a double, a Ducati double. Chaz Davies has yet to decide if his future will be in red or not but today his race placement gave a big hand to the Aruba team and his teammate Scott Redding in view of the world championship. Chaz had the best pace of everyone today but a subdued Superpole forced him to 9th position on the grid, effectively nullifying the chances of victory.
“It was my usual shit qualifying and it's a shame because I felt good during the lap, then I saw the time, the little difference between qualifying and race tyres and the starting position. It's frustrating because starting so far back always affects the first part of my races but I can only say that there are other riders who are faster than me over the flying lap ”.
As we said, your race pace today was the best and you also set the fastest lap. What was your strategy starting from the third row?
“Today I ran a really good race, it was fun and I think starting ninth made the race more interesting. I had to work a lot today because controlling tyre wear to catch Rea and Redding was complicated and that's why I kept getting close to them and then slowing down a bit, keeping the same distance and then losing something. At one point I told myself I had to push to get as high as possible on the podium even at the cost of finishing the tyre. I finished second but if I had had another lap, I could have tried to overtake Scott too, but he did some great last laps and didn't give me the opportunity to get close. "
Going back to qualifying, Davies seems to be suffering a lot on Saturday morning this season. The scoreboard reads: 16th in Phillip Island, 7th in Jerez, 13th in Portimao and, in fact, 9th today at MotorLand in Aragon. Why is it so difficult for a rider who is still proving to be on good form to put together a fast lap?
"It is not easy to answer this question because there is no objective reason for this difficulty. I happen to do qualifying laps that seem slow to me and still get to the front row, while at times, like today, I think I've done everything well but it's not like that "
Is there something about the bike and the set-up that gives you an advantage over the race pace but does not allow you to express the full potential of the V4R in qualifying?
"Compared to the tests, we changed the rear of the bike to fix some problems and I think this may have penalized me a bit in qualifying. We probably have to work on this aspect to improve. Overall, the new set-up is better but it has left me with some questions, we can still do a lot because we have not "played around" with it too much. It's something that only concerns the geometry of the bike, it has nothing to do with the suspension ”.
What are the goals for tomorrow?
“Victory is always my goal and it will be especially so in Race 2 because in the Superpole Race it is always complicated for me. It's like running ten qualifying laps and there are riders who have better times than me. The goal is to advance as far as possible in the Race 2 grid to start at least in the first two rows ".
