Team Ducati rider Chaz Davies addresses the media at the Grand Hyatt Doha Hotel and Villas in Doha yesterday.
DOHA: Ducati star Chaz Davies is looking forward to closing the 2018 WorldSBK season with a win at the ‘challenging’ Losail International Circuit’ (LIC) this week.
Currently a notch behind World Champion Jonathan Rhea (520 points), the tall Welshman (348) will be battling to secure the second spot ahead of third-placed Michael Van Der Mark (324) at the Qatar round of the championship.
The first free practice session kicks off today at LIC and 31-year-old Davies is excited ahead of the night race.
“I really want to finish the season on a high note with this team,” Davies said yesterday at the Grand Hyatt Doha.
“I want to win the last round. It’s our last race with this bike,” he added.
A special Q&A with Chaz Davies:
Q: How do you feel going into the final race of the season now that the championship has already been decided?
A: Obviously the goal - when you start the season - is to fight for the championship. That is unachievable for us now. So we are now looking to be the second best, to get the silver medal. It’s a really important race. You want to be the best guy, to be the champion. It is not the end of the world if it doesn’t happen. You can still be the second best. You can still go into the next season with great hopes. This is the fourth time that I am in the second position.
Q: What’s the strategy for this week? You have a 24 points lead.
A: After the race in Argentina, I crashed during the first race. During that race I was thinking ‘which cards do I play’. ‘Do I attack or do I defend?’ I could see that my next close rival Michael was quite far behind in the race. So I thought this is the chance to score some points and I crashed. I told myself ‘why did I do that?’. That can happen.
Now it’s the last race. I have to manage the situation as it comes. No race is the same. I’ll obviously have one eye on Michael. But I want to finish the season strong. I want to win the last round. It’s our last race with this bike. I really want to finish the season on a high note with this team.
Q: You like the track here, don’t you?
A: I really like the track here. Not only the track but the atmosphere as well. The schedule of the night is something I really enjoy. It is different to how we race elsewhere in Europe. This is special. It’s just a nice feeling about the weekend and then the track - it’s really good. It’s flowing, it has got character to it. It presents a lot of challenges. I really enjoy it. But here you can always find a nice rhythm, a nice flow. It’s not too tight. Every corner links you to the next one so you have to keep your momentum. Corner speed has to be high.
Sometimes after racing in European tracks, you have to reset your brains to race here. You have to let go off the brakes and just let the bike go a little bit faster than usual. In Europe there a lot of V-type of corners which make you stop and then you turn really fast. In Qatar it is all about keeping the lines.
Q: It rained here last week. If it rains again in the race week, does that make things difficult for you?
A: I think we have to see what happens. I know in the past everybody in Qatar is concerned about rain during a race week. The artificial lighting causes a reflection and that makes things difficult to see. So if it rains, the protocol here is we delay the race and we dry the track. I think that’s the situation and what will they do. Every time I come to Qatar I have to fight for something. So there is plenty of motivation. When the visor goes down and the lights go up and then it’s just me and racing. Sometimes the build-up is long. But when the lights go up is my motivation. This is a great lifestyle and see amazing places. It is like living your dream.
Q: How do you look back at your season?
A: It’s really been challenging. I broke my collarbone twice. It came at the back off a knee injury last December. There’s been a few hurdles along the way. We started the season looking well. We have been fairly consistent but not spectacular. We are just missing that a little bit. Next year we will have a new bike. It is a 4-cylinder bike and is the first time Ducati produced that kind of a bike. I think that is something really exciting for all of us. That’s the motivation - the new bike. We can do decent damage. Until the bike goes on the track, we don’t know. It’s going to be interesting. The guys who have tested the bike say it has got more potential. They like it. It could be the bike to beat. Until Phillip Island next year, we don’t know yet. Fingers crossed.
Right now somebody needs to find something to beat Jonathan. I think I am the guy who has beaten him the most. I still believe Jonathan hasn’t seen the best of me or the best of Ducati.
Q: Will Jonathan ever relent? Does his domination of the sport surprises you?
A: Hmmm never (laughs). Johnny is a great rider. He’s got a great package underneath him. He gets to extract 100 percent from that package every weekend. He rides very well. For us to get to that level next year, we feel we have more room with the new bike. We got room to improve. His domination, does it surprise me? Yes and no! Nobody is at his level right now. You don’t become that rider overnight. He has built that up. He has won four championship titles. He has full confidence in his bike.
The bike performs like the way he wants it to perform. His natural progression to where is really amazing. That’s why everybody is below him.
Q: Do you ever plan to go back to MotoGP?
A: Obviously as a full-time rider, it is difficult to go to MotoGP because they are looking at (young) Moto2 and Moto3 riders. These guys have proven they can step up and be competitive. For me to make that jump would be difficult to get the right package. In MotoGP I would be fighting for middle positions. If the right opportunity comes about in 2-3 years, I would look at it.
