Rea in control at Laguna Seca opener

Full WorldSBK race one results at Laguna Seca

Jonathan Rea has dominated to victory at the Laguna Seca opener ahead of Chaz Davies to open up his World Superbike championship lead to 70 points.

Davies retained the lead from pole position ahead of Rea as the pair quickly went about building a time gap on the chasing pack. Despite the factory Ducati rider initially pulling out couple of bike lengths on Rea, the Welsh rider ran wide at the top of the iconic corkscrew turn on lap six which allowed Rea to skate into the lead.

Further back Alex Lowes nipped past Tom Sykes with a similar move a couple of laps later to take third place before Eugene Laverty began harrowing the factory Kawasaki rider. On lap 13 Laverty eventually made the move on Sykes to take fourth place but the delay saw Lowes build a three-second advantage ahead of him.

Out in front, Rea maintained his advantage with trademark consistency to gradually pull out a one-second lead which he measured to the finish for victory. With Davies a comfortable second, Lowes secured an impressive podium for Pata Yamaha following on from his breakthrough World Superbike race win last time out at Brno.

Laverty also backed up his strong performance to take fourth place for Milwaukee Aprilia ahead of Aruba.it Racing Ducati’s Marco Melandri in fifth place who had to battle back from 10^th on the grid after a poor qualifying.

Xavi Fores topped the Independent class in sixth place for Barni Ducati as Sykes faded badly over the second half of the race for Kawasaki in a distant seventh place.

Sykes was almost passed by Michael van der Mark who could only manage eighth place for Pata Yamaha but ahead of MV Agusta’s Jordi Torres.

Gagne recorded his best result of the year for Red Bull Honda on home turf with 10^th place while teammate Leon Camier pulled out of the race with an issue.

With a high rate of attrition in the race Yonny Hernandez secured 11^th place for Pedercini Kawasaki ahead of Roman Ramos on the Team GoEleven Kawasaki while Karel Hanika scored points on his World Superbike debut for Guandalini Yamaha.

Both Lorenzo Savadori (Milwaukee Aprilia) and Loris Baz (Althea BMW) rounded out the points places despite having to remount after crashes early on in the race.

Toprak Razgatlioglu was another to suffer a nasty crash as the Turkish rider high-sided off coming down the corkscrew on his Puccetti Kawasaki.