Another typically battling ride from Chaz Davies saw him lead and then push Jonathan Rea hard for along time in race one, and then try to stay in contention in race two so well that he took two WorldSBK podiums that were by no means guaranteed pre-race at Laguna.

After a boiling race one, Davies had to rethink things as the conditions cooled down just a little on Sunday.

“It was much different conditions today and that was the main thing. The pace today was a lot, lot quicker and overall we did make some changes. Nothing that affected me adversely. It was OK. But it is still missing the details as yesterday, and we used the same tyre options,” Davies told bikesportnews.com

Coming from row three was especially hard for Davies at Laguna, but he did it well in the end. “It is very challenging getting through here,” said Davies. “You have to concentrate on that start and try not to get a bad track position. If you end up on the wrong side of somebody in any of the corners it just opens the door to be buried in another few places.

“It is so difficult to pass around here. You have to really force the passes a little bit. Eugene was the last fellow I passed and going into turn one I was quite a way back and I saw that I had gained a lot on him the lap before and he was dropping off quite a lot. I wanted to see Eugene on the podiums, but I did not want to get stuck behind him for another lap and get stuck in the clutches of the Yamahas.

“Eugene was losing pace but I did not know how much he was going to lose over the next laps, so I let the brakes of and thought ‘sod it’ I will go for it, and out it up the inside of him. I was like, “Oh, come on, pull it down…” And I felt the front twitching. Anyway I pulled it up and did a good lap and he said it helped him a little bit - and that was the intention.

“He is virtually a brother in law, so it was like racing family out there! It was for the right reason and it is good to see him on the podium and he deserves it more than anybody, he has had a tough year, or couple of years, and injuries and everything.”

With Rea so far ahead of him now in the championship battle, a wild 75 points worth, what keeps Davies motivated?

“We turn up and we try to get the best result on any given weekend,” he said, matter-of-factly. “So even though we are not winning the races at the minute and we are not close in the championship we just turn up and try to get the best out of myself and package and everything. If it is good enough it is good enough, If not you cannot magic things overnight. You cannot turn our package right now, to put it on the same level as our strongest competitors.

“So we just have to keep working. This bike is towards the end of its life and it is getting harder and harder to get the details out of it, where I am feeling like were a little bit on the back foot. We will keep working, there is no reason to throw in the towel at all, and we still have plenty of races and good opportunities to try and strike when things are right.

“Overall we need to find something else. So before we start to look at the big picture of the championship I think we need to, with this package, make steps. It is clear that we are not really in the same race at the minute.”