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Portimao WorldSBK: Rea dominates for race-one win

Runaway WorldSBK points leader Jonathan Rea dominated the opening race at Portimao this lunchtime, crossing the line with a four-second lead to extend his championship lead courtesy of a clash between the Aruba Ducati team-mates.

Chaz Davies started from 12th on the grid after a dreadful Superpole this morning and went full send into turn which resulted in him clashing with Alvaro Bautista and shoving him clean off the track.

As Davies settled into third place at turn two, Bautista re-joined in 17th and had to work his way back to sixth, passing Alex Lowes on lap 14 after the Yamaha man ran wide, before marching on to fourth.

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Davies and Michael van der Mark (Yamaha) had a tough fight at times for second place but in the final laps Davies eased out an advantage of 2.2 seconds to allow him to score the runner-up spot.

Kawasaki, Ducati and Yamaha - the podium was a multi-coloured affair in the first day back at school after such a long summer break.

Leon Haslam (Kawasaki Racing Team) was fifth after Bautista finally got past him with a couple of laps to go.

Thirteenth in Superpole gave Toprak Razgatlioglu (Turkish Puccetti Racing) a tough challenge to overcome and he was in contention for fourth place with Razgatlioglu until Bautista blew past.

Alex Lowes (Yamaha) slowed at the end to finish seventh but he lost third place overall to van der Mark today.

Sandro Cortese (GRT Yamaha) beat his own team-mate Marco Melandri for eighth, with Michael Rinaldi (Barni Ducati) tenth.

Tom Sykes (BMW Motorrad) was the confident second place rider for a while but was quickly swamped and then eventually a faller, restarting to score a few points for 13th place.

Eugene Laverty retired his Go Eleven Ducati after eight laps.

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