Castrol Honda's Jonathan Rea has taken the first World Superbike race win at Imola this morning, crossing the line ahead of Noriyuki Haga's Pata Aprilia after a race-long battle which saw the pair separated only by a tenth of a second after 21 laps.
Rea and Haga pulled a ten-second gap over world champion elect Carlos Checa and the PBM Kawasaki of Tom Sykes, the latter being mugged for the final podium spot on the last lap to extend his series lead over Marco Melandri who could only finish eighth.
Melandri's team-mate Eugene Laverty faded to fifth place after challenging for the lead early on as the Liberty Ducati duo of Sylvain Guintoli and Jakub Smrz came through to prevent Melandri taking any more points. Ayrton Badovini put his BMW Italia S1000RR in ninth with Joan Lascorz taking tenth from Mark Aitchison.
Alitalia Aprilia's Leon Camier went straight on into the last chicane on lap one and re-joined well down the field. He managed to come back to claim 15th place and one point while Leon Haslam crashed unhurt with 13 laps left to go.
