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Australia

Portimao WSBK: Rea dominates Saturday race

Jonathan Rea took full advantage of Chaz Davies stumbling in qualifying and Tom Sykes withdrawing from the weekend to win the first World Superbike race at Portimao with ease.

Jonathan Rea, Kawasaki Racing

Jonathan Rea, Kawasaki Racing

Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

While Rea started from pole, main rival Davies made a mistake in qualifying and lined up only ninth.

With Rea's Kawasaki teammate Sykes withdrawing after a Saturday morning practice crash, he was joined by Aprilia duo Eugene Laverty and Lorenzo Savadori on the front row.

Rea led off the line and immediately pulled away from the rest of the field, led by Laverty.

Davies gained five positions at the start to run fourth and quickly passed Savadori and Laverty to run second by lap 5.

However, by the time he worked his way through the field, Rea was leading by nearly five seconds clear, and the Ducati rider was unable to close the gap. Rea eventually crossed the line with a lead of 6.1s.

Melandri also quickly passed Laverty but couldn't keep up with Davies, and was instead under pressure from MV Agusta's Leon Camier in the latter stages of the race.

Camier got past Laverty halfway through the race and gradually closed in on Melandri, but eventually ran out of time and settled for fourth, his best result of the season.

Yamaha's Michael van der Mark kept up with Camier to grab fifth, followed by Jordi Torres (Althea BMW).

The Aprilias of Laverty and Savadori both lost five places compared to their starting positions to finish seventh and eighth respectively.

The top 10 was completed by Spaniards Xavi Fores (Barni Ducati) and Roman Ramos (Go Eleven Kawasaki).

Honda's Stefan Bradl had a strong start to run sixth after Lap 1, but crashed at Turn 14 soon afterwards, as Alex Lowes became another notable rider to fall later on.

Takumi Takahashi finished 15th on his WSBK debut on the second Honda, 54 seconds off the lead.

Race results:

Pos.RiderBikeTime/Gap
1 united_kingdom Jonathan Rea  Kawasaki 34'38.383 
2 united_kingdom Chaz Davies  Ducati 6.189
3 italy Marco Melandri  Ducati 10.166
4 united_kingdom Leon Camier  MV Agusta 10.508
5 netherlands Michael van der Mark  Yamaha 13.739
6 spain Jordi Torres  BMW 16.816
7 ireland Eugene Laverty  Aprilia 18.786
8 italy Lorenzo Savadori  Aprilia 22.090
9 spain Xavi Fores  Ducati 28.430
10 spain Roman Ramos  Kawasaki 38.746
11 italy Raffaele De Rosa  BMW 43.181
12 italy Ayrton Badovini  Kawasaki 43.212
13 australia Anthony West  Kawasaki 43.325
14 italy Riccardo Russo  Yamaha 43.412
15 japan Takumi Takahashi  Honda 54.303
16 czech_republic Ondrej Jezek  Kawasaki 59.880
17 italy Alessandro Andreozzi  Yamaha 1'04.441
18 united_kingdom Alex Lowes  Yamaha 1 lap
Ret argentina Leandro Mercado  Aprilia 4 laps
Ret germany Stefan Bradl  Honda 18 laps

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Edition

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