WorldSBK champ Jonathan Rea rode as the start-to-finish leader of the ten-lap sprint race at Portimao, winning his second of the weekend and his 11th of the year.
Alvaro Bautista pushed through to finish second, passing Alex Lowes with a handful of laps left and hanging onto an advantage of 0.2 seconds over the Yamaha man across the line, and showing no signs that yesterday’s longer opening race had aggravated his shoulder injury.
Toprak Razgatlioglu (Turkish Puccetti Racing) had an aggressive and fruitful run through from row five to fourth place, with Leon Haslam (Kawasaki Racing Team) fifth.
Michael van der Mark (Yamaha) was the last man to overtake long-time second place runner, Tom Sykes (BMW Motorrad) but is now back behind Lowes in the championship standings.
Front-row starter Sandro Cortese (GRT Yamaha) was eighth, Loris Baz (Ten Kate Yamaha) ninth and Chaz Davies (Aruba Ducati) was a disappointed tenth after his day-one podium in the longer first race. He had started from the fourth row, in 12th place.