Davies Moves Into Second Spot In World Championships Battle

Chaz Davies survived a first lap incident to move into second place in the World Superbikes standings in Jerez.

The Knighton-born rider was involved in a collision with Eugene Laverty on the first lap of the race on Sunday, but was able to get back to the pits.

But after the race was red flagged and re-started, Davies took third spot behind Kawasaki’s Jonathan Rea and his Ducati team-mate Marco Melandri.

And with Tom Sykes finishing fifth on the other Kawasaki, that was enough to move Davies level with the 2013 champ on 363 points.

But with Davies having seven race wins this season compared to the Yorkshireman’s two it puts him ahead on countback.

The final round of the season is in Qatar where Davies bagged a double win on the Losail track last season.

The 30-year-old, who had finished second in Saturday’s first race, said: “I’m really happy with the result.

“To get on the podium twice wasn’t easy for us. I think we did the best we could this weekend.

“It was clear it wasn’t going to be an easy round for us since Friday morning, the new tarmac threw us a bit of a curveball and we had all sorts of obstacles to jump over, but we reacted quite well.

“It would have been a tall order to fight for the win, but the main goal was to take some points off from Sykes and now we’re exactly even, so I’m satisfied with that.

“In 2016 we did really well in Qatar so I hope to start from where we left off last year.”