Scotsman Kev Coghlan took his best-ever World Supersport result with a second place tat Phillip Island but was taken by surprise at the appearance of the chequered flag as he believed he had one more lap in which to catch surprise winner Jules Cluzel on the MV Agusta.

Run over just five laps after Jack Kennedy’s CIA Honda blew an engine, Michael Van Der Mark and championship favourite Kenan Sofuoglu went down in identical but separate incidents, leaving Coghlan, Cluzel, Florian Marino and Raffaele De Rosa to scrap it out.

With the former triple champ out of contention Marino went into first, followed by Cluzel, De Rosa, and Coghlan. On the final lap the Perthshire rider went into third, but seconds later went into first over taking Cluzel and De Rosa in the process. But on turn 11 Cluzel had the pace to get the better of Coghlan to go into the lead, and take the win, with Marino and Tamburini completing the top five.

“My best result last year was third and to go one place higher in the first race is mega. To be fair, I don't think things went our way today, I was looking forward to the long race, and we had a good setup to hold the tyre. The re-start wasn’t good and I was hanging back in fourth. The last lap I thought we had one more to go so that was a huge mistake on my part but I have to thank the team so much for such a great job,” said Coghlan.