Weather a problem for Herefordshire World Superbike ace Chaz Davies at Silverstone (From Hereford Times)

Weather a problem for Herefordshire World Superbike ace Chaz Davies at Silverstone

9:30am Thursday 9th August 2012 in Sport

CHAZ Davies bemoaned the rain and the race officials at World Superbike round 10 at Silverstone – but admitted the end result could have been a lot worse.

The 25-year-old was on the back foot from the off at the second British round of the 2012 World Superbike calendar, mechanical problems drastically reducing his track time.

He qualified in 16th and then opted for the wrong tyre during race one a day later, finishing just inside the points in 14th as Loris Baz claimed an unlikely victory.

Conditions worsened for race two but Davies was one of few not to fall before the red flag was deployed after 10 laps, oil on the final turn the cause of the majority of the tumbles.

Officials then decided to count back the race by two laps meaning Davies finished seventh – something he felt ruined what looked like being a positive second outing.

“Going into race day the big question mark was the weather and that definitely played a part,” said Davies. “In the first race I took a gamble on intermediate tyres.

“It turned out staying dry for most of the race so it was definitely not the right choice but I still got a couple of points so it wasn’t terrible but I definitely expected more.

“We could have definitely had a decent race if we were on slicks like the others. The second race I was pretty happy with.

“I was really disappointed with race direction’s decision to call it like that and reinstate four guys who crashed but I am happy with the way things went in the wet.”

Frenchman Sylvain Guintoli was credited with the victory in race two while Davies ended with 6.5 points from his two races – only half awarded for the second due to it being cut short. Davies, who sits 11th overall with 99.5 points, will wait three weeks before round 11 in Moscow and the ParkinGO MTC Racing rider is hoping for a better time of it in Russia.

“It wasn’t a great weekend really, unfortunately we had too much bad luck with mechanical problems which upset our weekend,” he added.

“You can’t give away too much track time to these guys, this class is too competitive for that. We made a step forward, though, and got the bike working quite well.

“At the end of the second race I had a problem and I was struggling to see but in general we move on to Russia hoping to have smooth weekend.”

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