CHAZ Davies’ miserable start to the World Superbike Championship (WSBK) season continued in Thailand last weekend.

The Presteigne star crashed in race one and struggled to end 15th and was forced to retire from race two as Ducati team-mate Alvaro Bautista continued his dream start to life in WSBK with victory in both races at Buriram.

Davies said: “I had a decent start, settled into a rhythm and put myself into the podium fight which I thought was a realistic target.

“Unfortunately I got suckered into a mistake because I wasn’t running my own race. It wasn’t a good day, but I felt like I made steps forward.”

Worse was to follow on the second day with Davies retiring from the race due to technical problems with his Panigale V4 R.

The 32 year old said: “I’m obviously disappointed not to have been able to finish the race and see the true potential.

“Regarding the technical problem, after feeling something was a little bit amiss when I lost some speed, I decided to save the engine and think about the season ahead,” said Davies.

“It was disappointing not to capitalize on our improvement because I had a good race pace and the feeling with the bike was much better.

“We’ve got some clear ideas on the direction to take and there’s some light at the end of the tunnel.

“Now we have the test at Aragon before the race which is a good opportunity for us to make some more gains.”

The third round of the championship takes place at Aragon in Spain on April 7 with Davies desperately in need of a podium finish to revive his season.

Davies is currently 12th in the riders’ rankings with just 18 points, well adrift of the championship leaders.