Chaz Davies saw his World Superbikes title hopes suffer a huge blow as he crashed out on his home round at Donington Park on Saturday.

The Knighton-born flier crashed twice during the race having had the spectacular engine blow on Saturday which had cost him crucial track time.

Davies is now 58 points behind Ulster’s Jonathan Rea – who finished third – at the half-way point of the campaign.

The 29-year-old had taken an early lead in the fist of this weekend’s two 23-lap races but after being overtaken he crashed at Goddards.

Davies managed to keep going but dropped to 16th but worked his way back up to ninth spot when he went down again at Coppice on lap 15.

This time there was no way back for the Ducati rider whose bike had caught fire on Friday after the engine blow.

Tom Sykes went on to claim a seventh straight win at the Leicestershire track to beat the record he shared with Carl Fogarty.

The 2013 champ is now just three points behind second-placed Davies in the championship standings ahead of Sunday’s race.

Rea also made a couple of mistakes as he finished behind Davies’ Ducati team-mate Davide Giugliano but still extended his lead over his Welsh rival