Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team) completed a fantastic double-win at Imola, his second in 2013, to become the new Championship leader. The Hudderfield-born rider has led every single lap of Race 2 to cross the line as the winner for the 10th time in his WSBK career and, thanks to his 5th first place finish of the year, to equal the number of individual wins he was able to achieve in the last two seasons combined. After the disappointment of the first race, Jonathan Rea (Pata Honda World Superbike) redeemed himself to end up a lonely second ahead of works Aprilia rider Sylvain Guintoli.

Fourth place Marco Melandri (BMW Motorrad GoldBet) edged his team mate Chaz Davies for fourth place at the very last lap, while Loris Baz (Kawasaki Racing Team) won the battle for sixth ahead of Leon Camier (FIXI Crescent Suzuki). Michel Fabrizio (Red Devils Aprilia) managed to pulled away in the end for from a still recuperating Leon Haslam (Pata Honda World Superbike) and fellow Italian Ayrton Badovini (Team Ducati Alstare) for 8th.

Today’s second race saw two potential protagonists out of contention in the early stages, as Davide Giugliano (Althea Racing Aprilia) crashed at Turn 7 during the second lap, while trying to keep Sykes’ pace, and Eugene Laverty fell off his bike at Turn 18, on lap number six.