After such a brilliant title-winning year in the FIM Supersport World Championship last year the promotion of Chaz Davies to the Superbike class was an eagerly awaited initiative for more than just the rider and his ParkinGO MTC Aprilia Team. Chaz was unlucky to fall at a fast section of track in the second qualifying session at the opening round in Australia, and particularly unlucky to break his left radius and ulna in the process. However, he is well on the way to recovery, as the rider himself reveals in this exclusive chat with WorldSBK.com.

"I am pretty good - getting there - and I think we have made real progress in a couple of weeks. I am fairly happy and I could not have asked for any more so far," said Davies. "My wrist is sore and swollen but it is probably about on schedule for a good recovery. They only fitted me with a removable cast and I have had that off for a few days now. I am getting my wrist moving again now and the bones have started to knit together. My thumb seems to not want to work much but it is getting better."

Davies suffered a significant injury, which needed major treatment, as he explained. "My radius bone was slightly displaced and broken so it had opened up a little bit. The surgeons lined it up and put in three screws, one long and two short, through the radius, plus a small plate. To give it some substance they put some artificial bone graft in as well, to give it something a bit more solid to hold onto. Two wires were put in to hold the plate onto another part of the arm. I did not have work done on the broken ulna, that can heal naturally."


The question Davies and his Italian based team are keen to get a positive answer to is whether or not Chaz will be fit to ride at Imola. The long gap between the start of the year at Phillip Island and the forthcoming round plays in his favour - and the favour of those other riders who also suffered injury in Australia. "I think the progress has been really good so I cannot see why I would not be racing there," affirmed Chaz. "So far progress has been right on track. I am probably not going to be 100%, and I will be a bit sore, but I should be 80 or 90% fit. It has been lucky, so lucky, for such a big gap between races to have come along now. I think it is the longest break of the year, four weekends, and I do not think we were not due to have a test before Imola. To have such a long gap was real lucky for all of us - Eugene Laverty, David Salom, Leon Haslam and me - and it could not have come at a better time."


For Chaz, so long in the Supersport class and never a Superbike regular until now, getting back to fitness is also important simply because he showed good pace for a rookie in Australia, finishing just over a second from the best on combined qualifying, and making it into Superpole that was ultimately never to happen. "I was happ[i]y where I was first time on the Superbike," confirmed Davies. "I can give you a list of reasons why I should not have been particularly competitive but I was happy the way things were going. At the end of every session I thought that was pretty good, I was enjoying it, and each session we went out and by the third lap or so I was going a couple of tenths faster. It was all coming a bit easier. Phillip Island is a particularly difficult track to get up to speed on too. It is really difficult because there are a lot of things to consider, like the tyre, it is fast and bumpy in the corners and you feel like you are doing 300 mph because it comes along right after the winter break. I wanted to be inside Superpole, that was my goal, and I think looking at race pace we could have been somewhere between sixth and tenth. That would have been an awesome place to start, but we did not get that far. It is not just me that is learning, it's the whole crew."
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Davies is now continuing his recovery and training programme to make sure he can compete at Imola from 30 March-1 April.

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