Chaz Davies had to szettle for 10th place in Saturday’s World Superbikes season opener in Australia as team-mate Alvaro Bautista took a sensational victory on his debut – and that of the new bike.

The Knighton-born rider admitted he was still trying to get used to the Ducati Panigale V4R bike which his Aruba-it Racing have introdcued this year in the hope of fighting for the championship.

And the bike certainly looks competitive as Spaniard Bautista beat reigning four-time champ Jonathan Rea at Phillip Island near Melbourne.

Davies, who had qualified in 16th spot having been hampered during pre-season testing by injury and technical issues, got up to 10th spot having struggled with tyres issues during the 22-lap race.

“For me it was rather a disappointing race,” admitted Davies. “Initially I was quite happy and after a good start I more or less maintained the pace with a decent group.

“Then I suddenly had such a massive drop of rear grip, so much so that I felt like I was riding in sand: we’ll have to look at the data to figure out why it was like that.

“I know how to manage a race at Phillip Island and I felt like I was relatively conservative for most of the race, but I hit trouble at two-thirds race distance and wasn’t expecting it.

“It shows we are inexperienced with this new bike; I had a pace that I thought could see us into the top 6 but that wasn’t the case.”

Davies will be looking to imrpove on his finish in Sunday’s second race at the Australian track.

Marco Zambenedetti, Ducati Corse Track Technical Coordinator, said: “On Sunday we’ll try and also get Chaz into a condition where he can express his true potential, because we’re convinced that he can.

“We’ve still got a lot of work to do because despite this first win we’re only just at the beginning.

“For sure we did a great job! We are seeing the results of everything we’ve done in the last few years and the fact that we believed in a new project that represents a historic turning-point for Ducati.

“We knew we could be competitive and we knew we had the technology and the working method to succeed.

“Álvaro has given us such enormous satisfaction by taking the V4 R to victory, and even though he is a very experienced rider, he is still a rookie in this category.”

The 34-year-old had started third on the grid after Superpole but took control of the race on the opening lap to finish a massive 15 seconds ahebad of Rea who has dominated the championship for the past four seasons.

“This victory has given me such incredible satisfaction and I’m really happy to have won my first World Superbike race,” said Bautista.

“For sure we worked well throughout the winter months and this allowed us to prepare a competitive bike for the first round.

“I wasn’t able to set the pole because I still have to understand how the qualifying tyres work, as they are completely new for me. In the race however I was really confident because I knew I had an excellent pace, and my strategy was to take the lead as soon as possible and then keep a consistent pace.

“I could see that the gap was increasing lap after lap, even though I was trying to manage the tyre wear, especially towards the end of the race. I’m really happy and I’d like to thank Ducati, Aruba and the guys in my team, now we’ll see if we can keep this up.”