Rea and poleman Tom Sykes ran side-by-side into the first corner off the line, with the former getting ahead under braking, while Ducati's Davies shot up from seventh to fourth behind Aprilia's Laverty.

Laverty hunted down Sykes over the next four laps, while Rea steadily opened up his advantage to close to eight tenths of a second.

Sykes succumbed to the pressure of Laverty at the first turn at the start of lap five, and before long Davies was hounding the Kawasaki man for third.

Laverty kept Rea's lead at eight tenths briefly, but Rea soon responded to the Aprilia's rider's advances and opened up his gap to over a second.

On lap six, Davies launched his Ducati up the inside of Sykes for third and began his chase of Laverty ahead.

Davies steadily brought the gap to second down, and he pounced when Laverty ran off track at the final corner with five laps remaining.

Rea remained unchallenged to the chequered flag to extend his championship lead to 80 points with his ninth win of the season.

Laverty was unable to make amends for his off-track excursion and gave Davies a comfortable run to second, with the Aprilia rider completing the podium.

Yamaha's Michael van der Mark found himself inside the top five on lap nine having started from 11th, and carved past Sykes at the Carro hairpin with nine tours to go.

Van der Mark did close Laverty down over the final few laps, but remained fourth. He will start Race 2 from pole position as a result.

Sykes was a lonely fifth at the flag ahead of Xavi Fores, while Ducati stablemate Marco Melandri seized seventh after a hard fight with the second Milwaukee Aprilia of Lorenzo Savadori.

Leon Camier got his Honda home in ninth, while Leandro Mercado took his first top 10 result since May's Imola round.

Loris Baz (Althea BMW) crashed at the Park chicane at the start, while Yonny Hernandez (Pedercini Kawsaki) fell at Rio just a few laps later.

Alex Lowes (Yamaha) crashed twice, re-joining from his first off at Quercia on lap six before tumbling out of contention at the Park chicane four tours later.

Race results:

Pos.	#	Rider	Bike	Time/Gap
1	1	Jonathan Rea	Kawasaki	33'31.846
2	7	Chaz Davies	Ducati	2.791
3	50	Eugene Laverty	Aprilia	3.700
4	60	Michael van der Mark	Yamaha	4.921
5	66	Tom Sykes	Kawasaki	6.713
6	12	Xavi Fores	Ducati	11.065
7	33	Marco Melandri	Ducati	12.375
8	32	Lorenzo Savadori	Aprilia	12.995
9	2	Leon Camier	Honda	13.840
10	36	Leandro Mercado	Kawasaki	32.317
11	54	Toprak Razgatlioglu	Kawasaki	36.316
12	94	Niccolo Canepa	Yamaha	37.665
13	40	Roman Ramos	Kawasaki	39.466
14	45	Jake Gagne	Honda	39.896
15	24	Alessandro Andreozzi	Yamaha	48.461
16	99	PJ Jacobsen	Honda	54.364
17	21	Michael Ruben Rinaldi	Ducati	3 laps
18	81	Jordi Torres	MV Agusta	4 laps
Ret	22	Alex Lowes	Yamaha	-
Ret	68	Yonny Hernandez	Kawasaki	-
Ret	76	Loris Baz	BMW	-