Davies Wraps Up Pre-Season Testing…Now For The Superbikes Title

Chaz Davies is ready for this weekend’s World Superbikes season opener after finishing pre-season testing.

The Powys-born rider finished third fastest on the second day of testing at the Phillip Island track near Melbourne on Tuesday.

Davies is now ready to return for the opening practice session of the 13-round, 26-race season on Friday.

The 30-year-old was only headed on the timesheets by Duacti team-mate Marco Melandri and reigning two-time champ Jonathan Rea who set the pace for Kawasaki.

Davies said: “Throughout these tests we’ve been careful, moving step by step without making drastic changes to our base setup.

“But also exploring a little bit given the particular nature of this track, which makes our bike a bit more difficult to turn.

“We’ve been moving in the right direction and getting progressively more comfortable and closer to the mark, but there’s still room for improvement.

“We also took different tyres to race distance, and I’m quite happy with our performance as far as that is concerned.

“We have good ideas about our next steps to take, and we’ll evaluate them on Friday.”

Davies significantly improved his lap time as the final day of the test took place in warmer conditions that the rain and wind that hampered the first day.

He clocked one minute 30.893with Melandri a few tenths quicker as Rea set the pace.

Davies, who won the last six races in 2016, is one of the favourites for the title along with the Kawasaki duo of Rea and Tom Sykes, the 2013 champ.

But Melandri could also prove to be a challenger having returned to World Superbikes.

The Italian said: “It’s only a test, but it’s always important to feel good on the bike so I’m hopeful ahead of the racing weekend, which I’ll take step by step.”