Jordi Torres produced an excellent masterclass of speed at Losail to take his maiden World Superbikes victory in Qatar ahead of the Kawasakis of Jonathan Rea and Tom Sykes.
The results also means Rea only needs to finish in the top ten to beat Colin Edwards’ all-time record of 552 points as the Ulsterman now sits on 548 points after his runner-up performance.
Rea began the contest in the desert brightly, taking the holeshot into turn one when the lights went out, but polesitter Sykes battled back with the champion as Chaz Davies joined the initial fun on the Ducati.
In behind that trio Alex Lowes was running well on the Crescent Suzuki with the Red Devils Aprilia duo of Torres and Leon Haslam in close attention and it was this sextet doing the battling in the first few laps.
Both Kawasakis began to pull away at the front though, with Davies struggling to keep tabs on them, and in the process the Welshman found himself down in fourth after a bold move into turn one from Lowes on lap five.
Indeed Davies began falling further back into the clutches of the chasing Aprilias as Lowes began to chase down the breakaway pair of Kawasakis, but a mechanical issue on lap seven saw the Derbyshire rider retire from the contest while running in third.
That allowed Davies back into third and gave him an opportunity to hunt down the ZX-10Rs of Sykes and Rea, who were now over 2.5seconds ahead of the chasing group. However, the Welshman had failed to deal with the Aprilias of Torres and Haslam and both got through again at the beginning of lap eight, where Torres charge to eventual victory began in earnest.
The Spaniard quickly gapped his team-mate and Davies as he bore down on the Kawasakis, who in turn were doing their own battling at the front of proceedings. Some misfortune for Tom Sykes - in the shape of a daring, perhaps tough move from Jonathan Rea - allowed Torres to join the Kawasaki duo in the fight for the victory and he didn’t waste the opportunity.
Rea stuffed it up the inside of his team-mate and as he did, it forced both men to run wide but Rea took the lead nonetheless, although running wide brought Torres right into the mix and on the next lap the former Moto2 rider got past Rea and never looked back.
The final laps saw Torres and Rea engaged in a thrilling tussle, as Sykes fell further back due to what may have been late-race tyre issues - something that has plagued the Yorkshireman at times this season - and although Rea gave as good as he got, he struggled to match Torres for raw speed on the straights.
A late, late move - again a daring one - from Rea going into the final turn on the last lap looked like it might give him victory but he ran wide as Torres savoured his first ever success in World Superbikes under the floodlights in Qatar.
