Alvaro Bautista put on another display of absolute consistency to demolish the WorldSBK field by 15s in the first race at Aragon but all eyes were on the titanic scrap for second place.
As Bautista cleared off to the tune of a second a lap, reigning champion Jonathan Rea charged through from tenth on the grid to join Chaz Davies, Alex Lowes, Tom Sykes, Eugene Laverty and Michael van der Mark – who also started from the car park – for a race-long podium dice.
In the end, a last-lap mistake from Goeleven Ducati’s Laverty left old enemies Davies and Rea to fight for the rostrum spots and it was the Kawasaki man who took second place with Davies notching up his maiden podium of the season.
If the race right out front was a new kind of boring, but the race for podiums was like a saloon fight in full evening dress.
Factory riders elbowed and threw shapes at each other all race long, with even 2018’s dominant rider Rea unable to set his own unmatched pace as the laps counted down.
He had to put in a special last lap to make sure that a resurgent Davies would be third and Rea second – for the seventh time in succession in 2019.
Laverty had a fourth place finish – at least – nailed on until he fell in the middle the final chicane, running wide and losing grip as he tried to recover from the suspicion of contact with Davies.
He got going again for 15th and last place despite ‘being all over the place' after losing one winglet in a first-lap rub with Rea.
The combative Lowes (Pata Yamaha) was another podium possible until he dropped back with a handful of laps to go, while a strong starting and strong finishing Sykes (BMW Motorrad) saw himself into a final fifth place despite being passed by almost all his rivals down the straight at some stage or other.
Van der Mark (Pata Yamaha) was just ahead of front row man Sandro Cortese (GRT Yamaha), taking sixth place.
Eighth went to Toprak Razgatlioglu (Turkish Puccetti Racing), with Leon Haslam (Kawasaki Racing Team) having a tough race and finishing ninth, from a 12th place grid start.
Jordi Torres (Pedercini Kawasaki) completed the top ten, with Leon Camier (Moriwaki Honda) 11th and Marco Melandri (GRT Yamaha) 12th.
Markus Reiterberger (BMW Motorrad) did not score after a startline clash with Rea, which led to a fall for the German rider.
Bautista is now 31 points ahead of Rea, with two more races to go in Spain on Sunday.
