Laguna Seca WorldSBK - Race Results (2)
Chaz Davies delivered a peerless performance to become only the fourth different winner of the 2019 World Superbike Championship season and bring some joy for Aruba.it Ducati on a dismal day for his title contending team-mate Alvaro Bautista.
The Welshman is a seasoned winner in WorldSBK but in a year that has seen him struggle to get to grips with the new Ducati Panigale V4 R, his win at Laguna Seca comes against the grain of disappointing form.
However, Davies would end a drought that has stretched back to Aragon last season in formidable style by getting the edge over Jonathan Rea on the run down to turn one and stretching away thereafter to win by more than three seconds.
Indeed, on a weekend that has seen Rea dominate, the Kawasaki rider had no answer to Davies’ turn of pace as he had to settle for second place.
Even so, having begun the weekend 24 points ahead in the WorldSBK standings, Rea heads into the eight-week summer break with a huge 81 points advantage over Bautista after almost completely maximising on his rival’s bitter misfortune.
Already reeling from his race one crash, Bautista fell again in the Superpole Race to this time injure his shoulder. Despite making the start of race two, he lasted just a single lap before opting to pull in and settle for potentially pivotal zero score in the US.
Another profitable weekend saw Toprak Razgatlioglu notch up his fifth podium in seven races with an impressive, if lonely run to third position.
Alex Lowes pulled off one of the few passes of the race to get the better of Tom Sykes in fourth place, while Leon Haslam ended the weekend with a sixth-place finish.
Loris Baz prevailed in a battle with Jordi Torres to finish in seventh place, ahead of Marco Melandri – making good gains from 17th on the grid – Michal Ruben Rinaldi, Leandro Mercado and Eugene Laverty, who marked his return with a trio of solid points’ finishes.
Meanwhile, Michael van der Mark suffered a technical DNF, which sees him cede third in the overall standings to his Pata Yamaha team-mate Alex Lowes.
