Jonathan Rea further extended his World Superbike championship lead after cruising to his 10th win of the season in the opening race in Portugal.
Just prior to the 20-lap contest, the ‘A’ soft compound Pirelli tyre was withdrawn from the allocation on safety grounds, and this threatened Rea‘s charge on Saturday as he was forced to run an alternate option he had not tried at all during practice.
The Kawasaki rider quashed any speculation that the withdrawal of his preferred tyre would affect him from the off, however, as he took the holeshot and shot off into a two-second lead at the end of lap one.
Behind, Ducati’s Chaz Davies had made his way from ninth on the grid to fifth, and moved up into the podium spots at the beginning of lap three.
The Welshman soon disposed of Milwaukee Aprilia’s Eugene Laverty for second and quickly pulled away from the chasing pack.
But he could do nothing to halt Rea‘s charge, the KRT rider maintaining a six-second lead to the chequered flag to increase his championship lead to 95 points over his absent team-mate Tom Sykes.
Davies’ Ducati team-mate Marco Melandri held third for much of the race, but came under intense pressure from MV Agusta’s Leon Camier, who had carved his way through the pack from 11th on the grid after a technical issue in Superpole.
The Briton had cut the gap to Melandri to seven tenths as they started the final lap, but the Italian just held firm to deny MV Agusta its maiden WorldSBK rostrum.
Fourth represents Camier‘s best result of the year, however, and will see him start from pole position on Sunday. Michael van der Mark completed the top five.
Jordi Torres passed Laverty in the closing stages to steal sixth, while Savadori headed Xavi Fores and Roman Ramos to complete the top 10.
Raffele De Rosa held off a fierce challenge from Ayrton Badovini, Ant West and Ricardo Russo to seal 11th, with Takumi Takahashi taking the last point for Honda on his WorldSBK debut.
The Japanese rider’s team-mate Stefan Bradl was running inside the top eight in the opening laps when he crashed at Turn 13. He was later joined on the sidelines by Leandro Mercado, who slid off his Ioda Aprilia on lap 10.
Yamaha’s Alex Lowes was involved in the early podium battle, but fell at Turn 5 eight laps in. The Briton rejoined the race and, after a trip to the pits, crossed the line in 18th.
