Althea Ducati's Carlos Checa has done World Superbike double at Imola this afternoon, taking his tally of wins to 23 as Tom Sykes and Leon Haslam mirrored their results from race one to occupy to the runner-up podium slots with Biaggi harrying the BMW man right to the line.
As in race one, Sykes tried to make a break and got his lead up to almost three seconds but a cool and calm Checa left it until half-distance once again and went underneath the Kawasaki man at Tosa and put in a gap before crossing the line two seconds ahead of the Huddersfield man.
Haslam looked like he may be able to go one better than his third in the opening leg but just couldn't find a way past Sykes for second. The Derbyshire man used up his tyre in the effort and slipped back into the clutches of Aprilia's Biaggi with two laps remaining. A determined Haslam managed to fend off the 2010 world champion however to take his weekend points tally to 32.
Ride of the meeting goes to Honda's Jonathan Rea as the Irishman was on the grass early on and then tagged the back of Eugene Laverty with five laps to go which sent him across the gravel trap at Villeneve but Rea got his head down again and managed to reclaim all the lost places, including Laverty's scalp, to finish in fifth place.
Laverty bagged sixth place and another hatful of points with Jakub Smrz in seventh. Fixi Suzuki's Leon Camier had a mid-race lull but fought back on worn tyres, as is his forte, to grab eighth place, passing Joan Lascorz in the final stages with Marco Melandri rounding out the top ten.
Chaz Davies had to fight back from dead last to 14th after he missed the final chicane and went down pitlane while John Hopkins retired with only a few laps run.
Post race - Checa
