GoldBet BMW’s Chaz Davies held off the charges from  team-mate Marco Melandri and Aprilia’s Eugene Laverty to take his team’s first World Superbike win at their home track at the Nurburgring.

But in a repeat of the earlier session, the race was red flagged when oil was spilled on to the track when Yamaha Motor Deutschland wildcard rider Matej Smrz crashed at turn one with two laps to go, and the race was stopped immediately. This meant that Davies took the victory, with Laverty in second and Melandri finishing in third.

But it was the Welshman’s team-mate who led the charge from the opening lap, followed by Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes, with Davies in third. On lap three Davies made his mark and went into second coming out of the NGK chicane with Laverty in turn making a pass on Sykes to go into third.

The Powys rider had enough of waiting behind his team-mate, and decided to make a move on Melandri to go first coming out of the final chicane on lap seven. Three laps later Laverty made a move at turn 1 on the small Italian figure of Melandri, then the Irishman had his sights firmly set on the number one spot on the podium and began to make a move on his fellow Celt.

On lap thirteen and fourteen Laverty tried to overtake Davies on turn 1, but both times the BMW just had that extra bit of pace to push on ahead. But Melandri was not down and out. He overtook Laverty at Yokohama and then proceeded to get the better of Davies on the straight.

But on lap fourteen Davies overtook his team-mate going out of the Yokohama chicane with four laps to go, then Laverty made his move on Melandri on turn 1 to move second, just before the red flag came out.

Sykes was never able to catch up with the leading trio, and found himself in a championship race with Aprilia’s Sylvain Guintoli. But the Frenchman closed the gap on the Huddersfield lad, but did not have enough pace to make a move, meaning Sykes leads the championship by a single point.

Gunitoli rounded off the top five, with Althea Racing’s Davide Giugliano, pole setter Ayrton Badovini never too far off the pace. Ducati Alstare’s Carlos Checa rounded off the top ten.

Smrz was not the only rider to suffer problems, Pata Honda’s Leon Haslam crashed with fifteen laps to go while in seventh. He managed to rejoin and ended race two in fourteenth.

There were notably absentees in the final race, Kawasaki’s Loris Baz, Pata Honda’s Jonathan Rea and Fixi Crescent Suzuki’s Leon Camier all missed the final session due to injuries caused by crashes earlier in the day.