Kawasaki rivals Jonathan Rea and Tom Sykes were separated by a few tenths of a second as they chased the podium places in Race 1 at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola, with a small mistake by Rea putting pressure on the Northern Irishman all the way to the last lap. The reigning Champion now takes a 40-point lead into the second race of the weekend on Sunday after being unable to topple the Ducati dominance of Chaz Davies first time out.

At the start of the race, Rea and Sykes formed an early top three with eventual race winner Davies, before Rea was forced to drop back after experiencing an electronics issue under braking at times, running wide and off track at turn 7 at one point and allowing Sykes back into the battle for P2. Ultimately the reigning Champion crossed the line in second, just 0.323s in front of his chasing teammate to keep his 100% podium record in 2016 going.

“In the beginning I felt good with Chaz and I managed to close the gap down to him,” said Rea. “We have had some issues on the engine brake side and this caused me to run on. It was happening into the fast turn five and it took my confidence a little bit. When I made the mistake the gap changed. I am happy with my race because second is good as Chaz was on a different planet this morning. I was just happy to be there in the race at the beginning. I was the best of the rest today and now I’m happy to look forward to tomorrow.”

”It is difficult to pass here at Imola because it is a track that does not leave much of a margin for error,” added Sykes. “The only possibility to pass came in two areas and it would have been difficult to make a clean one. Considering the amount of practice time we lost on Friday we were probably not at a bad level. Consistency-wise the Ninja ZX-10R was good in the race but we just missed a bit of pure lap time, even in Superpole, and that will be our priority for tomorrow.”