Aruba Ducati’s Chaz Davies has taken his second World Superbike win of 2015 today in the first race at Laguna Seca, leading from lights to chequered flag and converting his first-ever pole position to a six career win.
Davies was never headed the encounter and crossed the line with almost 1.8s in hand over Tom Sykes who managed to keep Kawasaki team-mate and series leader Jonathan Rea by making his ZX-10R as wide as he possibly could and riding defensively into Laguna’s sparse passing areas.
Off the line, Davies was first into the Andretti Hairpin and never looked back while Davide Giugliano got mugged by the two Kawasakis and Jordi Torres’ Aprilia as Davies pulled an immediate gap.
Sykes and Rea lapped together for the entire race and the Ulsterman wasn’t able to put a pass on Sykes, trying twice on the brakes into the final corner but wasn’t able to hold a line and Sykes was back past both times.
Rea looked to have a slightly quicker pace than Sykes and was stronger on the brakes into turn two, up to the Corkscrew and into turn 11 but Sykes was just able to keep Rea behind him to force Rea into his worst result of the season so far.
Giugliano managed to get past Torres for fourth place with 12 laps to go and pulled a gap on the RSV4 while Alex Lowes, who made a small error early doors and slipped from fifth to eighth, managed to get back to sixth as Leon Haslam slipped off with five laps to go but re-mounted to end in 13th.
Sylvain Guintoli and Michael Van Der Mark finished in seventh and eighth with a nine-second gap while Tati Mercardo ended in ninth. Leon Camier pushed the MV Agusta into tenth after slipping back to 14th early on.
