Chaz Davies should secure second place in the championship in tonight’s season finale in Qatar before being hit by a display glitch.

The 31-year-old lost one point and a position after the final lap indicator was posted one lap too early in Friday’s opening race at Losail leaving him in eighth place.

But Davies still has a 23-point lead over Michael van der Mark going into Saturday’s final race of the campaign – and his final race on the Ducati Panigale R before a new bike is launched next season.

“We started a bit behind after a tough qualifying and then we began to make our way back,” said the Aruba it Racing rider who started 12th on the grid.

“I eventually caught up with Marco(Melandri)  and Xavi (Fores), closing up on them in the middle part of the race, but then I started to feel the front tucking with five laps to go and it got progressively worse.

“Our priority is to finish second in the championship so I just tried to hold position. Once (Loris) Baz passed me, I saw ‘final lap’ on the display on the finish line, even though it was shown too early by accident, so I closed the throttle once I was over the line in the following lap.

“I lost a point and a position on the grid for tomorrow, which is a bit disappointing, but we also need to improve to finish stronger in our last race of the year.”

The race was won by already crowned four-time champion Jonathan Rea.