Chaz Davies has won the opening race of the day at Laguna Seca after a lights to flag display saw the British rider take the win by 1.798s.

After several days of blazing California sun, raceday at Laguna Seca for the GEICO US round, the 9^th of the 2015 eni FIM Superbike World Championship season dawned with thunder and rain greeting the WorldSBK riders.

A wet warm up saw the riders take to the track for the first time with Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team) fastest in the tricky conditions but thankfully by the time race 1 was scheduled to start the sun was shining and the track had dried.

Davies made the perfect start, taking the hole shot before opening up a 1.6s lead at the end of lap 5. Despite the Kawasaki pairing of Tom Sykes and Jonathan Rea giving chase they were unable to reel in the Aruba.it Racing Ducati rider who romped to the victory, his 6^th WorldSBK win and the 2^nd for the Panigale machine.

At the flag and after a tense, race long duel 2^nd and 3^rd went to Sykes and Rea, the pair pushing each other to limit throughout.

Davide Giugiano (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati SBK Team) finished a lonely 4^th after regrouping from a poor start, the Italian who started on the front row eventually getting the better of Jordi Torres (Aprilia Racing Team – Red Devils) who rode a solid race to 5^th.

Alex Lowes (Voltcom Crescent Suzuki) inherited 6^th after Leon Haslam slid out of contention, while reigning champion Sylvain Guintoli powered the Pata Honda to 7^th ahead of his team mate and reigning World Supersport champion Michael van der Mark.

Leandro Mercado impressed to 9^th aboard the Barni Racing Ducati, the Argentine rider recovering from a huge crash earlier in the weekend.

10^th place after 25 enthralling laps went to Leon Camier (MV Agusta Reparto Corse), with Randy de Puniet (Voltcom Crescent Suzuki) and Roman Ramos (Team Go Eleven) completing the top 12.

Leon Haslam scored 3 points for 13^th after nursing the Aprilia to the finish after rejoining ahead of the youngest rider in the field Christophe Ponsson (Team Pedercini) who was 14^th.

Gianluca Vizziello (Grillini Racing) scored his first WorldSBK with a 15^th place finish.

Althea Racing had a difficult race with Niccolo Canepa suffering a technical problem at turn two on the opening lap. His team mate Matteo Baiocco had an incident at the start before crashing half way around the opening lap at the corkscrew.

Race 2 will start at 1430 local time again running for 25 laps of the 3.610km circuit.