Aruba Ducati’s Chaz Davies continued his incredible World Superbike weekend in Italy with a dominant lights-to-flag victory in race one at Imola ahead of Kawasaki duo Jonathan Rea and Tom Sykes.
Davies, who had finished FP1, 2, 3 and Superpole atop the timesheets, got the most important prize of all in the opening race this afternoon courtesy of a decisive start off the line after the race had been delayed due to a freak warm-up crash involving Dominic Schmitter and Peter Sebestyen.
The Welshman got a much better run into Turn 1 than his team-mate Davide Giugliano, sat second on the grid, as Rea made his way through in the opening metres to sit on Davies tail with Sykes and Giugliano battling for third.
Davies impressed in the first stages, having opened a smart lead of around a second in the first couple of laps once he had gotten the holeshot but world champion Rea began to reel him in as the laps wore on.
Aprilia’s Lorenzo Savadori, Althea BMW’s Jordi Torres, MV Agusta’s Leon Camier and the Honda duo of Michael Van Der Mark were embroiled in the tussle for fifth, with Savadori holding on admirably at the beginning.
Back at the front, Davies was continuing to pour it on as he held the gap between Rea and himself to a second, with Sykes fending off Giugliano in third but the Ulsterman was hunting Davies down and with the laps passing, Rea began to close in.
It looked as if a battle royale between the top two men in the championship was about to begin, when Rea had managed to slice the advantage down to 0.5s with six laps gone.
As he pushed, hustled and harried Davies, the Welshman refused to budge in front and at Tosa on the next lap Rea made an uncharacteristic error as he ran wide and onto the gravel, bringing Sykes into play behind him.
From then on, it was a lonely but impressive ride to 25 points for Chaz Davies, the 29-year-old not putting a foot wrong on his Panigale as he cut Rea’s lead in the championship to 40 points and delivered a home World Superbike win for Ducati at Imola for the first time since 2012.
Rea and Sykes did have a brief skirmish for second, with both men’s tyre wear coming into play but the former was able to hold on and minimise the damage created by Davies superb victory.
Torres finished a very creditable fourth, his best result this season, just ahead of Giugliano and Camier, with the Englishman running well in fifth before seemingly making an error that allowed Giugliano to sweep through and make it to the flag.
Van Der Mark and Hayden finished inside the top ten on the Hondas, seventh and ninth respectively with Savadori sandwiched between them on the Aprilia as Xavi Fores rounded out the top ten.
Alex Lowes had a difficult day on the Pata Yamaha, taking his YZF-R1 home in 11th place while reigning BSB champion Josh Brookes also struggled on the Milwaukee BMW although the Australian did bag some points in 14th.