Aprilia's Max Biaggi has made it three wins in row after emerging victorious from the opening World Superbike race at Motorland Aragon while nearest title rival Jonathan Rea had to pick himself up from a first-corner crash to cross the line in 16th place which means he surrenders second place in the title chase.
Rea got a less-than-perfect start and got tangled up with Jakub Smrz into turn one, saying that something knocked his hand off the bar. He couldn't push into into the points as the Irishman struggled with a twisted seat unit and could only muster 2'00 laptimes when leader Biaggi and second placed man Marco Melandri were able to run consistent 1'58s.
The two Italians had a cat-and-mouse scrap for the win as soon as they broke clear of Sykes and Eugene Laverty. Biaggi had opened a gap at the front with Laverty in tow but Melandri could see his auld enemy running away. He put a block pass on the Irishman for second at the end of the back straight and set about chasing down the Roman Emperor.
The swapped places right until the final lap but Biaggi had a strategy which he in put into place, driving past Melandri over the start/finish line as they started the penultimate lap and pulled a small gap which the BMW man couldn't claw back.
Rea wasn't the only title challenger to suffer in race one, however, as Kawasaki's Tom Sykes was nerfed off by an errant Ayrton Badovini on the penultimate lap. The Italian tried to go underneath the Huddersfield man for third but lost the front of his satellite BMW and collected Sykes, which means Sykes drops behind Carlos Checa in the title chase.
The reigning champion was gifted the final podium spot when Sykes and Badovini went down while Chaz Davies bagged fourth place after running behind the Spaniard for most of the 20-lap encounter to equal his best finish of the season so far.
Laverty ran out of grip in the latter stages and slipped to fifth place, just ahead of Michel Fabrizio who put his satellite BMW ahead of Leon Haslam on the works S1000RR. Davide Guigliano took eighth with Leon Camier found some speed late on for ninth. Maxime Berger put his Liberty Ducati in tenth place.
