An incident involving Jonathan Rea has led to the second WorldSBK race of the weekend at Phillip Island to be red flagged.

The race - which was already delayed by two hours following an earlier track contamination issue - was in its fifth lap of 20 when the red flags were deployed for a Rea's crash at Turn 11.

Though unseen by cameras, the flags were brought out immediately to allow medical crews to tend to Rea, who was later seen being stretchered into an ambulance. According to official source, Rea is conscious.

Yamaha Racing later tweeted that Rea was up and about in the pit box, seemingly having avoided any serious injuries.

The incident came just as Rea had been making strong headway into the leading pack having hauled his way up to fifth place at the time of the incident, which occurred at the start of the long left-hand final corner.

The Ulsterman is yet to score a point this weekend on his Yamaha debut, Rea complaining of persistent set-up issues that have left him lacking confidence on his R1. The crash means he leaves the opening round without a point to his name.

Prior to his crash, an already eventful race had seen Toprak Razgatlioglu retire after a large engine blow, while Alvaro Bautista led the way from Andrea Locatelli.

The race will restart with a shortened 11 lap distance having already been reduced from 22 laps to 20 due to time lost cleaning the circuit following an oil spill at Turn 2 during one of the support events.