Jonathan Rea completed a perfect double victory at Imola, leading every single lap of Sunday’s WSBK races.
The result also means Rea takes over the world championship lead from Tom Sykes, while Pata Honda celebrated a memorable treble with Lorenzo Zanetti having won the WSS race.
Rea’s race two win mirrored that of the first – the Ulsterman rocketing off the line, then inching every further away to hold a 4.095s advantage at the conclusion of the 19 laps.
While Rea reigned supreme up front, Chaz Davies sealed a pair of hard earned runner-up places – marking his first podiums for Ducati – after fighting his way through from sixth on the opening lap.
Having faded to fifth in race one, Aprilia’s Sylvain Guintoli clung on longer in race two and – although unable to fend off Davies – kept the Kawasakis of Sykes and Loris Baz at bay to claim third place.
Rea is now four points ahead of reigning title holder Sykes heading to their home round at Donington Park.
After seeing a front row start wasted by a poor getaway, then accident in race one, Davide Giugliano looked set to make amends as he held an early second place behind Rea, only to subsequently lose pace and cross the line in a distant sixth.
Toni Elias (Red Devils Aprilia) took seventh from Leon Haslam on the very final lap, the Pata Honda rider having suffered an early scare when he speared straight-on at a chicane.
Voltcom Crescent Suzuki’s Eugene Laverty had issues pulling away from the grid on the warm-up lap, reached seventh in the middle stages, then lost out to Elias and Haslam.
Rookie team-mate Alex Lowes had been matching Laverty until a mistake on lap nine dropped the Englishman from eighth to 13th, after which he re-gained three places.
An out-of-touch sixth in race one, home star Marco Melandri’s misery increased in race two when he was left just eleventh on his factory Aprilia.
BMW Motorrad Italia SBK replacement Leon Camier again won the Evo battle, after Bimota’s Ayrton Badovini had been removed from twelfth, but was made to work much harder after being forced back to 18th by an off-track incident.
