Factory Aprilia rider Sylvain Guintoli won the first World Superbike race of the season at Phillip Island, bagging his fourth race victory in the series and his first in the dry. Aprilia were dominant in race one with the Frenchman’s team-mate Eugene Laverty finishing a close second and Red Devils Roma rider Michel Fabrizio coming over the line in third but only by seven one-thousandths of a second.Laverty led from the first corner until there were eight laps left, when he was passed by his French team-mate.

The first and only crash of the race happened on lap 13, pole-man Carlos Checa hit the back of Marco Melandri’s Goldbet BMW bike and they both crashed out of the race going into the Honda hairpin, leaving the way for Fabrizio to make it up the sheets. Checa went to the medical centre but was not seriously hurt, but he won’t be out on the grid for race two.

There was a British battle for fourth place, involving Goldbet BMW’s Chaz Davies, Pata Honda’s Leon Haslam and Kawasaki rider Tom Sykes. But during the final laps of race one, Sykes' team-mate Loris Baz overtook Haslam as he tried to catch up with the Englishman.

Davies eventually bagged fourth, followed by Sykes, who did start the race in second but was never able to make it back into the top three. Haslam had to settle for seventh after suffering with recurring electronics issues, and hot on his heels was Pata Honda team-mate Jonathan Rea, who was never in contention Fixi Suzuki’s Leon Camier managed to finish in ninth place after dropping from the third row to 13 place on lap one and scrapping with rea for most of the encounter.

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