The Aruba.it Racing – Ducati team stepped on the podium with both its riders in Race 2 at Jerez de la Frontera (Spain), with Marco Melandri and Chaz Davies respectively in second and third position.
The Italian, who was forced to retire in Race 1 while he was leading, climbed back from 10th position on the grid, matching the winner’s pace once he had a clear track in front of him. The Welshman, second in Race 1, was initially involved in a contact that resulted in a crash before the race was red-flagged. At the restart, Davies rode another solid race to tie the score with Sykes in the fight for second position in the championship, where he’s leading due to the higher number of wins.
After twelve rounds, Davies (363 points) and Melandri (301 points) are respectively 2nd and 4th in the championship. The Aruba.it Racing – Ducati team will resume action at Losail (Qatar) for the last round of the season, scheduled for November 2-4.
Marco Melandri (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati #33) – 2nd
“Today’s second place, at the end of such a hard race, feels almost like a win to me. Starting in 10th, I knew it would have been hard to climb back through the field. Rea had the pace to pull away by himself, and I wanted to stay with him from the very start. I was recovering positions quickly, but then I lost time with VD Mark after a contact at turn 5. We could have tried to hunt down Rea together, but it turned into a fight that made us lose time. After that, all I could go for was second place, but it felt good to finally be able to fight with Chaz until the very end. I’m confident ahead of Qatar, we’re still improving.”
Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati #7) – 3rd
“I’m really happy with today’s result, to get on the podium twice wasn’t easy for us. I think we did the best we could this weekend. It was clear it wasn’t going to be an easy round for us since Friday morning, the new tarmac threw us a bit of a curveball and we had all sorts of obstacles to jump over, but we reacted quite well. It would have been a tall order to fight for the win today, but the main goal was to take some points off from Sykes and now we’re exactly even, so I’m satisfied with that. In 2016 we did really well in Qatar so I hope to start from where we left off last year.”
Stefano Cecconi, Aruba CEO and Team Principal
“To see both Marco and Chaz on the podium at the end of a difficult round makes us proud. Together with the whole team, they showed great determination, putting up a show and finishing strong. We’ll start over from here to take full advantage of our potential in Qatar and finish the season on the top step of the podium.”
