GoldBet BMW’s Marco Melandri claimed the World Superbike win in bizarre weather conditions which started off dry and ended in monsoon proportions, in the series first flag to flag race.

But it was his team-mate, Chaz Davies who looked to take his third win of the season, after he led for 20 laps of the Moscow circuit. The Welshman led from the start after getting a clean break away from the rest of the pack, and began to pull away from second place Althea Racing’s Davide Giugliano, and increased his lead by two seconds. But the Italian’s race hopes ended rather swiftly when he crashed on his second lap on turn one, therefore increasing Davies’ lead even further.

With ten laps to go Davies had expanded his lead to ten seconds and looked a sure bet for the win, but the rain started to fall hard on sector one and two of the circuit and soon riders were coming in to change tyres, the first of those were Fixi Crescent Suzuki’s Leon Camier and Red Devils Roma rider Michel Fabrizio.

With five laps to two GoldBet BMW riders went into the pits to change their tyres, but the former MotoGP rider’s team was just that fraction quicker and Melandri came out of pits first.

The final racer to change from slicks to wets was Kawasaki’s Loris Baz, he did lead briefly when the two BMW riders were in the pits but he was soon overtaken by both of them and then went into his garage to join the others on the wet tyres.

With five laps to go every rider on the grid had changed tyres, and Ducati Alstare’s Ayrton Badovini was able to stay on his bike to cross the finishing line in third, behind Melandri and Davies and it was the first time a Ducati has made it onto the podium all season.

Eleven seconds behind Badovini was Pata Honda’s Jonathan Rea, who had a steady race followed by Fabrizio, who made the most of his earlier tyre change, with Aprilia’s Sylvain Guintoli ending the race in sixth place. M-R Racing’s Max Neukirchner, Baz, Camier and Cluzel rounded off the top ten.

It was not a good day for the British contingent as most of them fell victim to the slippery track and adverse conditions. Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes did not crash, but while he was in fourth place and on his fourth lap he experienced a major engine blow out, and had to watch as his bike ended up in flames.

Then with ten laps remaining Aprilia’s Eugene Laverty crashed and seconds later he was joined by Pata Honda’s Leon Haslam who fell at the same corner. The Honda rider was seen limping away from the crash, as he is still recovering from a broken leg. But the Italians and Spanish also succumbed to the gravel. Ducati Alstare’s Carlos Checa crashed on only his first lap after getting tangled up with Fixi Crescent Suzuki’s Jules Cluzel and Iannuzzo and Savadori never made it round to complete a single lap either.

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