Chaz Davies says it was a tough few opening laps but he knew from the start of the race that he’d made the right choice on tyres today, even when he dropped right back to 12th.

The Aruba Ducati rider admits it wasn’t an easy ride early on in today’s World Superbike race at Magny-Cours but knew if he could stay upright he would be in with a chance of landing a podium.

Davies took the choice to go intermediates at the last minute on the grid, and knew he would have to play it safe in the opening laps.

“It was a dicey race because on the grid the track was soaking, it was completely wet and I tried to make an educated guess on tyres as much as possible and I was looking at where it had dried out a bit,” he said.

“Even on the sighting lap I could see a little bit of a dry line coming in on the last sector and thought if I go out on wets I’m going to have to stop at some point, if I go out on slicks it’s going to be a nightmare at the beginning – go in the middle.

“So went out on intermediates. The first laps were just survival, it took everything I had just to stay on my bike, not everywhere, just a few points on the track that were like ice.

“I saw the guys going away about 10 or 12 seconds but at that point I knew they hadn’t disappeared and I knew that we still had another 15 laps left to run so I was like ‘just stay on the bike, chip away at it bit by bit and see what happens’ and that’s what happened.

“Guys started coming back to me and had a fun race actually, it was nice to be in the mix and see people coming back to me. There were bikes all over the track, people getting lapped so it was very good, very fun and it’s good to be back on the top step.”

After this morning’s rain and subsequent wet conditions, it looks likely to be dry tomorrow. Davies feels he has a good enough dry set up not to be concerned, and thinks another podium isn’t out of the question.

“We had a good feeling yesterday in the dry, a good pace but I still want to try and work on the bike a little bit more for tomorrow but yeah, I feel good, we did everything we could yesterday in the dry so if it’s like that tomorrow then we’re there and thereabouts.”