REA DENIED BY CHARGING DAVIES AT IMOLA WORLDSBK

The defending champ was frustrated slightly in his bid for victory by Ducati’s Chaz Davies who blitzed the Superbike field and drove the local fans crazy with a convincing double for the Italian factory on home soil. Rea himself was hamstrung on Sunday with an electronics problem and also struggled on Saturday with an engine braking issue that caused him to run off the track. Davies set the pace (“Chaz was on a different planet” said Rea) while ‘65’ and teammate Tom Sykes pushed to stay with the Duke but caught little thrift.

“Chaz made a very good first lap and broke me a little bit but then I felt like I was managing the same pace and maybe even faster,” Rea commented Sunday afternoon. “Then I had a huge moment on the exit of the last chicane. I ran onto the Astroturf, which had held moisture from last night’s rain. A few laps later, when I was in fifth gear and on full gas, my bike just cut out on the straight. I lost two or three seconds in one lap. It fired into life again but it took me a few corners to relax. It feels like when we can’t win we should finish second and we did that at Imola. It is clear now that there are three guys now at the top of the championship. Every dog has his day and today was not ours.”

Sykes kept the front-runners earnest and secured a 3-3 for another rostrum outing and to remain in touching distance with Rea and Davies in the WorldSBK standings. “There are positives to be taken from this weekend,” the Englishman said. “You are never happy with third but you also have to be realistic and sometimes be happy with that. Even when we are struggling we are on the podium.” Alex Lowes was the sole factory runner in Yamaha colours after teammate Sylvain Guintoli suffered a spectacular crash on Saturday. The Brit rode his R1 to eleventh that same day and then had a better race to sixth on Sunday.

35 points is the cushion upon which Rea nestles with round six set to occur in two weeks time at Sepang in Malaysia. Cancellation of the fixture that was due to dive into the straights and kinks of Monza means that 2016 WorldSBK is now down to thirteen events and the trip east will bring the campaign close to the halfway point.