Injury causes Davies to retire from race two, continuing could ‘do more damage’

A shoulder injury caused GoEleven Ducati rider Chaz Davies to abandon an already disastrous WorldSBK weekend in Misano early. 

Davies was scoreless after race one due to a crash at turn four, before contact with Lucas Mahias saw him fall again at turn two on the opening lap of Sunday morning’s Superpole race. 

The second of the two tumbles had a more significant impact than the first, as Davies suffered a shoulder injury to his right arm that after a few laps in race two, resulted in the Welsh rider cutting his efforts short and retiring.

Davies said he could have continued, but felt his arm would have been in a ‘bad place’, when only a couple of points were realistically on the table. 

"Unfortunately not a good weekend and not a good day at all! In the Superpole Race I thought we had maybe improved the bike a little bit; for what I felt from the warm-up lap, so I was charged up for the race, trying to put myself in the first couple of rows for the main race," added Davies.

"I had a good start, then from turn 1 to turn 2 I was on the inside, but when we went left I didn't anticipate how much Mahias was gonna stop and I just caught his rear wheel. 

"My bike was quite upright, I crashed and I landed very hard on my shoulder. I tried to recover in the best possible way between the two races to reduce my pain, but I knew it would have been really tough. 

"I had no power on the right corners and in the hard braking zones - there are so many here. The left was ok, but the right was very difficult. I did a few laps and the pain was increasing and increasing and I continued losing the power and the control a little bit. 

"It just made no sense to continue. I could have got a couple of points, but I would have been in a bad place and in a bad feeling in the end, and possibly do more damage. Now I will do a shoulder check and have a rest for a couple of days and hopefully be ok for Donington!"