After 20 action packed laps, that saw the first flag to flag race of 2015 Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team) has taken his 9^th victory of the season in the opening race of the day at Portimao, coming home 9.384s ahead of team mate Tom Sykes and Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati Team) who completed the podium.

For the first 14 laps the Kawasaki pair were playing a game of cat and mouse until with 6 laps to go the rain began to fall. All but Sykes came in to change to wet tyres with Sykes following suit the following lap. The duo fought it out until Sykes made a mistake allowing Rea to notch up his 24^th career win.

Sykes finsihed 2^nd ahead of Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati SBK Team) who completed the podium after a titanic fight with Leon Haslam (Aprilia Racing Team – Red Devils) in the early stages.

Davide Giugliano (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati SBK Team) was 4^th with Sylvain Guintoli (Pata Honda World Superbike) and Matteo Baiocco (Althea Racing) 5^th and 6^th respectively.

Ayrton Badovini brought the BMW Motorrad Italia entry home in 7^th ahead of Leandro Mercado who experienced his first ever flag to flag race on the Barni Racing Ducati.

Michael van der Mark (Pata Honda World Superbike Team) recovered to 9^th after an off track excursion ahead of 10^th placed Alex Lowes (Voltcom Crescent Suzuki) who also ran off track before the rain fell.

Jordi Torres was the first of the factory Aprilia riders in 11^th, the WorldSBK rookie just beating team mate Leon Haslam who fell and re-joined on his first lap after changing to wet tyres.

Randy de Puniet (Voltcom Crescent Suzuki), David Salom (Team Pedercini) and Nico Terol (Althea Racing) completed the point scorers.

Race 2, which officially sees the championship enter the second half is due to start at 1310 local time.