FAI sponsored riders were met with rain for the start of practice sessions at the Catalunya based circuit. The Aruba.it riders took the opportunity to test various tyre setups, both feeling they’d 'done their homework' ready for the main events.

Saturday’s Superpole left Chaz Davies in 11^th on the grid for the start of race one. Despite this setback, he powered from the off, steadily working his way up the leader board until he found Rinaldi. With just a few laps to go Chaz made his move to pass Rinaldi, where he broke into the leading three, joining fellow teammate Redding and Rea that had pulled away into the lead.

Rinaldi slipped down to 7^th by the time the flag cam down but a valiant effort none the less. For a moment it looked like all three FAI sponsored team riders were going to finish in the leading pack.

Chaz Davies has been one of the top contenders in WorldSBK for years and when he hits upon the right hardware setup, his talents shine through – that’s exactly what happened in R2.

A much improved Superpole finish saw Chaz towards the front of the grid. The Welshman didn’t hang around by snatching the lead by lap 4. Once leading the charge, Davies made it look easy to hold his ground, bagging his first win of the season. Well done Chaz!

"It was a great race. The feeling is that we managed to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. Maybe we did it a bit late but the important thing is to have achieved this goal. I would like to thank my team who also worked late last night to fix some things on the set up that worked out great. The race pace was very good since the first laps and this allowed me to stay in the lead to manage the race. I am really very satisfied".  Chaz Davies

Redding didn’t have the Sunday that he’d hoped for which was a blow having secured a positive 2^nd place the day before. He gave it his all to take the fight to Rea but due to bike issues his lap pace was just off the mark; 6^th place was the result of which.

"It was a very difficult Sunday for me. Both in Superpole Race and Race-2 I had some problems, especially in braking areas. This limited me a lot because I was never able to find the right pace to be competitive. It's a shame: I expected to do well today. This is a bad result for the World Championship standings but I will not give up now. It is clear, however, that we will have to work hard to have a bike that performs as well as it did two months ago". Scott Redding

With just a couple of rounds left, there is no margin for error for the Englishman if he is in with a chance of winning the championship. We’ll be rooting for him!

Michael Rinaldi had even worse luck, where technical issues with his bike finally got the better of him just 2 laps before the end of the race.

Next stop Magny-Cours – France (2-4^th Oct)