Jonathan Rea cruised to a maiden win at the Losail Circuit in the first race of the Qatar World Superbike weekend, while Chaz Davies recovered from eighth in Superpole to finish second.
Pole man Rea nailed his launch and took the holeshot into the first corner. He immediately put a second of daylight between himself and team-mate Tom Sykes, who was being hounded by Alex Lowes for second.
Lowes – who qualified second – managed to utilise the tow down the one-kilometre front straight to slingshot past into the first corner on lap four, while Chaz Davies muscled through on the Yorkshireman at Turn 2.
Davies had a look at taking second from Lowes at the final corner at the end of the lap, but the Yamaha rider covered him off. However, he was powerless to stop the Panigale from streaking past down the pit straight.
Lowes soon found himself behind Barni Racing’s Xavi Fores, who then set about trying to pass Ducati stablemate Davies – though to no avail.
The Davies, Fores, Lowes trio ran line astern for the next handful of laps, though the Barni rider dropped out at the start of lap 11 with a technical issue, promoting Lowes back up to third.
The Yamaha rider’s charge was to end at the final corner of the same lap, however, as he pushed a fraction too hard and tucked the front. Lowes remounted, and was able to recover to 14th despite damage to his R1.
The Briton suffered another front-end crash, though, on the penultimate lap, this time coming at Turn 2. Team-mate Michael van der Mark fell while running inside the top eight on lap seven.
At the front, world champion Rea cruised across the line to edge 25 points closer to the outright record points tally set by Colin Edwards in 2002 and notch up his 15th win of the season.
The demise of Lowes and Fores gave Davies a clear run to the flag in second to edge 10 points clear of Sykes, who finished sixth, in their battle for second in the standings. Marco Melandri completed the podium.
The Milwaukee Aprilia duo of Eugene Laverty and Lorenzo Savadori regrouped in the closing stages after a tough start to put Sykes under pressure, with the duo carving through in unison at Turn 6 with three laps to go.
Laverty was able to gap team-mate Savadori across the final lap to secure fourth and pole for Saturday’s second race. Jordi Torres recovered from an off on lap five to finish seventh, while Althea BMW team-mate Raffaele De Rosa crashed at mid distance.
Sylvain Guintoli fended off Leon Camier to take eighth, with Roman Ramos completing the top 10. WorldSBK returnees Jeremy Guarnoni and Roberto Rolfo made it to the end in the points in 11th and 13th, while Jake Gagne split the pair on the sole remaining Honda.
Ondrej Jezek brought up the rear of the depleted 14-rider field. Davide Giugliano was forced to retire on lap seven when his Honda developed an issue, while Alessandro Andreozzi crashed in the opening stages.
