Chaz Davies says he is in a good place after a ‘decent’ start to the World Superbike weekend at Magny-Cours, and is ready for whatever the two races throw at him.

The Aruba Ducati pilot topped the timesheets in both this morning and this afternoon’s free practice sessions, and was the only rider to dip under the 1’38 barrier as he set a best lap of 1’37.836s this afternoon.

The Welshman was happy enough with his opening day’s work, and says he’s now in a good position to tackle whatever weather heads his way over the next two days.

“It’s been a good day, when you’re P1 in both sessions it’s always a decent day,” he said. “This morning was pretty plain sailing, just chipping away at it and getting some feeling with the track again and just working on some minor details of the bike.

“This afternoon we started exploring a bit, because obviously it could be wet tomorrow and it was important to try a load of stuff and we got down to a good lap time so I was happy with that, and also on used tyres we were consistent and fast so I was very happy about that.

“We made a slight error at the end of the session and went a little bit in the wrong direction but it’s all good info for tomorrow and it’s easy to go back.”