MCN’s top ten WSB riders: 6th

A remarkable season of FIM Superbike World Championship racing delivered an eclectic bunch of riders onto the podiums, from Australia to Qatar and all points in between. MCN’s entirely subjective top ten rider run-down attempts to grade the top riders from ten to one.

6^th Chaz Davies

• Championship position: 6th
• Wins: 0
• Podiums: 4

The last rider outside the top five was fully 96 points from fifth place, but on occasion Davies looked like the man most likely to break the four-cylinder stranglehold on the 2014 race wins.

Not bad considering he and his team were still working out what made the unconventional Panigale tick and tock and truly rock.

A thinking rider in the pits, a good strategist on track, he is still a hardcore fighter once the flag drops. That’s why Ducati hired him, so four podiums, including a beautiful Ducati hometown double second place finish at Imola, confirmed their faith in him.

Two more podiums made up for lots of no scores, with his race one concussion at Laguna particularly cruel as he thought he could win a double. It was more than an old AMA rider talking; he really felt he had the pace.

For Davies the past season was always going to be a bit of a bike learning/fixing year. With new rules coming you can count the people in the WSB paddock who think the Ducati will be anything but a potential race-winning beast on the cylinders of a 1200cc twin. Best yet to come for Chaz? Seems inevitable.