Race report

Imola WSBK: Davies scores lights-to-flag win as Rea slips up

Ducati's Chaz Davies took a confident win in the opening race of the World Superbike weekend at Imola, leading every lap of the race.

The Welshman secured his victory after Jonathan Rea, his only close challenger, made a mistake and lost several seconds.

The start of the race was delayed by 10 minutes following after a sighting lap incident, which saw Dominic Schmitter falling from his bike and sliding into Peter Sebestyen.

Once proceedings finally got under way, Davies quickly edged away from the rest of the field, building a lead of a second in just three laps over Rea and Tom Sykes, the Kawasaki duo passing Giugliano off the line.

While Rea managed to maintain the gap, the reigning champion ran wide at Tosa on Lap 9, narrowly missing the gravel and as such only losing around three seconds.

Rea rejoined just ahead of Sykes, the latter unable to take advantage of his teammate's mistake.

With the fight for the lead now effectively over, Davies cruised to the finish to take his third win of the season.

The podium was completed by Rea and Sykes, the championship leader holding off a late charge from his teammate.

Jordi Torres secured his and BMW's top finish of the year in fourth after passing Giugliano and the Ioda Aprilia of Lorenzo Savadori.

The Italian pair were running fourth and fifth in the beginning of the race but soon started losing ground.

Although he was demoted by Leon Camier as well, the MV Agusta rider made a mistake, allowing Giugliano to finish fifth.

Savadori lost further two places to Honda duo Michael van der Mark and Nicky Hayden but repassed the American to end up eighth.

Xavi Fores (Barni Ducati) and Yamaha's sole factory rider Alex Lowes finished 10th and 11th respectively.

Full results

Pos.	Rider	Bike	Gap
1	Chaz Davies	Ducati Panigale R
2	Jonathan Rea	Kawasaki ZX-10R	3.406s
3	Tom Sykes	Kawasaki ZX-10R	3.729s
4	Jordi Torres	BMW S1000 RR	13.631s
5	Davide Giugliano	Ducati Panigale R	19.948s
6	Leon Camier	MV Agusta 1000 F4	25.586s
7	Michael van der Mark	Honda CBR1000RR SP	27.262s
8	Lorenzo Savadori	Aprilia RSV4 RF	28.300s
9	Nicky Hayden	Honda CBR1000RR SP	29.263s
10	Xavi Fores	Ducati Panigale R	29.426s
11	Alex Lowes	Yamaha YZF R1	29.622s
12	Matteo Baiocco	Ducati Panigale R	30.005s
13	Markus Reiterberger	BMW S1000 RR	34.667s
14	Joshua Brookes	BMW S1000 RR	57.050s
15	Alex de Angelis	Aprilia RSV4 RF	1m03.267s
16	Karel Abraham	BMW S1000 RR	1m14.668s
17	Josh Hook	Kawasaki ZX-10R	1m40.796s
18	Pawel Szkopek	Yamaha YZF R1	+2 LAPS
Ret	Saeed Al Sulaiti	Kawasaki ZX-10R	+11 LAPS
DNS	Peter Sebestyen	Yamaha YZF R1	+18 LAPS
DNS	Dominic Schmitter	Kawasaki ZX-10R	+18 LAPS