Grand Prix of Italy

Rea doubles up in Italy to take lead in standings

11-05-2014

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Pata Honda’s Jonathan Rea dominated once again to take his second World Superbike win of the day at Imola - his first double at the Italian track, and now leads the overall championship standings.

It was a case of déjà-vu for the Northern Irishman who had a perfect start to storm on ahead of the pack to take the maximum 25 points and with a four second lead. Ducati’s Chaz Davies matched his second place finish with another one this afternoon. The Powys based rider got his second podium of the year and was able to push Aprilia’s Sylvain Guintoli into third, with the Frenchman completing the rostrum.

In a repeat of the opening race Rea got the hole-shot once again but this time it was Guintoli who was second followed by Ducati's Davide Giugliano, and the Isle of Man resident powered on ahead. On the second lap both Leon Haslam and his name sake Camier went wide at Variante Basa to lose some places on track and had to re-join outside the top ten. On the same lap Sykes went into fourth at Variante Alta getting the better of Melandri.

Davies also passed Melandri on lap four at Variante Tamburello and Kawasaki's Loris Baz was also able to take advantage of the struggling diminutive Italian, with the young Frenchman going into fifth, pushing the Welshman back down to sixth.

BMW Italia’s Leon Camier made another mistake going into Rivazza while he was battling with fellow Evo rider’s Salom and Canepa, and his chances of winning the Evo class for a second time today quickly diminished as he re-joined in nineteenth with 11 laps remaining. But soon powered through to make another challenge on the other Evo machines.

Giugliano fell off the race-pace and was soon swallowed by Sykes and Davies on the final chicane on lap ten. Voltcom Suzuki’s Alex Lowes took advantage of the poor form of Melandri to go into eighth and had his team-mate Laverty as his next target - but he went wide at Rivazza going back to thirteenth.

Further down the track Laverty was tying to hold off the charges of Elias and Haslam for seventh place. With seven laps remaining Elias made a pass that stuck on Laverty, pushing the Irishman down to eighth.

Rea was pushing on ahead and had a five second lead over Guintoli and Sykes by lap 14, and again remained untroubled by the other machines on track. Davies made an aggressive move on the reigning champ at Variante Tamburello to go into third with four laps left.

Canepa was on course to win the Evo class but had a technical problem, stopping him in his tracks. Elsewhere the fight for second spot was heating up, as Davies made a move on the home straight to pass Guintoli to edge into second, as Sykes fell back off the pace, and was soon in the grips of his young team-mate with only two laps remaining.

Sykes was soon overtaken by Baz on the penultimate lap at Variante Tamburello to slip back to fifth. But no one could come close to Rea who dominated the race to finish on the top step of the podium.

Meanwhile Haslam out-paced both Voltcom Suzuki’s of Laverty and Lowes and battled through to eighth, with Lowes completing the top ten. Camier snatched his second Evo class win of the day, and made the most of the technical issues of Canepa. The tall Kent lad ended the day twelfth overall. Alstare’s Christian Iddon finished just outside the top ten, but can’t take home any points for his team, due to homologation rules.