Davies Dominant in Laguna Seca Race One

Chaz Davies halted Kawasaki’s stranglehold of the World Superbike Championship as he scored an impressive double victory for Ducati at Laguna Seca.

After several days of blazing California sun, raceday at Laguna Seca for the GEICO USA round, the 9 of the 2015 eni FIM Superbike World Championship season dawned with thunder and rain greeting the WorldSBK riders. Getting good starts from the second row, Sykes and Rea held station for the opening half of the race, but the Ulsterman would begin to put pressure on his team-mate during the latter half.

Proceeding to keep it tidy all the way to the chequered flag, Sykes’ efforts were enough to earn him second position, with Rea forced to settle for – remarkably – his worst result of the season in third.

The decisive moment as far as victory was concerned came on lap one with Davies converting pole position into the lead at turn one while the Kawasakis of Rea and Sykes leapfrogged Davide Giugliano and Jordi Torres who both started sluggishly.

Race Two – Chaz Davies’ second WorldSBK double and the first one for Ducati since Imola 2012.

. Michael van der Mark followed his PATA Honda teammate home in eighth with Leandro Mercado and Leon Camier rounding out the top ten. Both riders finished comfortably ahead of Ayrton Badovini (BMW Motorrad Italia), who had a lonely ride to sixth after failing to finish in the first encounter.

Althea Racing had a hard race with Niccolo Canepa suffering a technical problem at turn two on the opening lap.

It was an unfortunate race for the reigning Champion Sylvain Guintoli, who was closely tailing Alex Lowes when the Briton decided to slow down to enter the pits in order to go for an early tyre change.

Rea leads the championship standings on 407 points, with Sykes second on 282 and Davies third on 263, ahead of the 10th round of the series in Malaysia in two weeks’ time.