Ending a tough day with a positive outlook ahead of race two, Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) played victim to the difficult conditions out on track for the debut race at Circuito San Juan Villicum, crashing out of the race on the 13^th lap of 21.

Putting up a strong fight after a tough qualifying in Argentina, he was able to get into sixth position on the opening lap and was soon locked in a battle for the podium in the early stages of the race. But with the leaders getting away, the British rider was putting in some strong moves on his Ducati Panigale R machine. Mid-way through the race, rain spots began to fall and riders became more tentative. Davies tried to pass Sykes but got caught out on one of the dirty parts of the track, and suffered a crash as he lost the rear and then the front of his machine.

Despite scoring no points, Davies was happy with the pace he had with his bike and is looking ahead to race two: “I was working into the race a bit, moving forward and pulling in Tom and Eugene. I started going with Toprak, who had really good pace so I was learning a few things from him - where my bike was working a bit better and where his bike was working a bit better. I started getting quicker and quicker and began to get a good run up on Tom around the back straight on lap 11 and I thought it was a good opportunity to pass. That corner out of quite a few of them is one of the cleaner ones but not clean enough. I just had a big lock on the entry and then it transferred into the front, I had to let off the brakes to get some weight back on the rear tyre and just locked the front over the dirt.”

“Its tricky making a move stick here as the racking line is pretty slim but I got caught out. The positive is that our pace at that part of the race was pretty good, we were pretty competitive and obviously disappointed but we’ll bounce back tomorrow.”

Keep up with the action tomorrow as Davies starts from 11^th on the grid all with the WorldSBK VideoPass.