Chaz Davies took his third race win of the Superbike World Championship season with a comfortable victory over series leader Jonathan Rea and his Kawasaki Racing team-mate Tom Sykes at Imola.
Davies and Aruba.it Racing Ducati team-mate Davide Giugliano had started the race, which was shortened by one lap because of a crash on the warm-up lap, from the first two positions on the grid.
But Italian Giugliano, in his home race, was demoted to fourth place on the opening lap by Rea and Skyes, who set about putting their fellow British rider Davies under pressure.
At one third distance Rea had narrowed the gap, but a mistake just before halfway allowed Davies to increase his advantage to over five seconds.
By the flag Davies, who won both races of the third round at Aragon, had eased off and crossed the line nearly three and a half seconds ahead of Rea with Sykes close behind in third.
Jordi Torres, on the Althea BMW, worked his way up to fourth by the finish and Giugliano had to battle hard to take fifth ahead of the MV Augusta of Leon Camier.
Honda's Michael van der Mark came in seventh, with Lorenzo Savadori eighth on the Ioda Racing Aprilia, Nicky Hayden (Honda) ninth and Xavi Fores 10th on the Barni Racing Ducati.
The race win took Davies to 40 points behind Rea, who leads the standings on 201, with Sykes back in third on 138 ahead of Sunday's second race.
Source: PA
