Behind race winner Chaz Davies, Rea finished second and Sykes a close third, in a repeat of the podium result from Race 1. Rea now has a championship lead of 35 points from Davies, while Sykes is third, 67 points adrift of his teammate.

Like the first race of the weekend, held on Saturday, Sykes was just too far back at the end to make a challenge on his Kawasaki colleague. Rea had to overcome an issue with his electronics cutting out and also almost falling as he ran wide when exiting the slow final chicane in his early pursuit of Davies.

Rea also maintained his 100% podium record, having scored ten from ten (including five wins) as he defends his reigning Champion status. Rea has now scored 75 podiums in his WorldSBK career.

Rea stated, “Chaz made a very good first lap and broke me a little bit but then I felt like I was managing the same pace and maybe even faster. Then I had a huge moment on the exit of the last chicane. I ran onto the astroturf, which had held moisture from last night’s rain. A few laps later, when I was in fifth gear and on full gas, my bike just cut out on the straight. I lost two or three seconds in one lap. It fired into life again but it took me a few corners to relax again.”

“It feels like when we can’t win we should finish second and we did that at Imola. It is clear now that there are three guys at the top of the championship. Every dog has his day and today was not ours.”

Sykes, meanwhile, explained, “We made some improvements from yesterday but we suffered after losing almost one hour on Friday in practice. Considering the race yesterday I felt a little bit more comfortable with the bike today but when there was a bike in front I was not able to do a good lap time. I was dropping back into the 1’48s and on a clear track I could bring it into the 1’47s. Even on the last lap there was a 1’47.7 and that was with making a mistake out of the final double lefts.”

He concluded, “There are positives to be taken from this weekend. You are never happy with third but you also have to be realistic and sometimes be happy with that. Even when we are struggling we are on the podium.”