Newly-crowned World Supersport Champion Chaz Davies rounded off his season in fine style at Portimao this afternoon, taking a lights-to-flag victory just ahead of David Salom and James Ellison on the PTR Honda who increased his podium tally to three for the season by adding to his British Superbike third place last weekend.
Davies dived into the lead through turn one and was then gifted a 1.3s gap before turn three when Gino Rea survived an impossible highside. He was flicked out of the seat, landed on the tank and veered across the track which pushed Broc Parkes into the gravel trap, simultaneously holding up the rest of the field.
Parklgar Honda's Sam Lowes picked up the pieces and set off after the Welshman as Ellison came through to sit behind David Salom for fourth. The pair duked it out until the Kendal man went through but Salom was back in front soon after.
Lowes' race was run when he crashed unhurt with 11 laps remaining, promoting Kawasaki's Salom to third. Ellison was having none of the last rostrum place though, and went past the Spaniard on the brakes into turn one and set off after Davies who had extended his lead to two seconds.
Salom wasn't finished, however, and with four laps to go, he had reeled Ellison back in. The gap was down to three-tenths of a second with two laps remaining and as the started the last lap, a fag paper measured the difference. Salom took the lead a quarter of the way into the lap and held off the Kendal man for second.
A hard-charging Luca Scassa took fourth with youngster Florian Marino completed the top five while Rea limped home in 15th place for a point.
