Rea defeats Davies in WorldSBK dogfight

World champion Jonathan Rea (Kawaski) has edged out fellow Briton Chaz Davies (Ducati) in a brilliant opening race of the world superbike season at Phillip Island this afternoon.

In a cracking race to start the 29th season of WorldSBK racing, it all boiled down to a dogfight between the pair on the final lap. Davies managed to get past Rea at turn 10, but it was short-lived as Rea blasted straight back into the lead at the next bend and held the advantage to the chequered flag.

The final margin between the pair was 0.063 seconds, with Honda's Michael van der Mark scoring an excellent third position on his Honda.

Josh Brookes (BMW Motorrad) was the leading Aussie in 10th position as he contested his first WorldSBK race in nearly a decade.

Rea was particularly animated after his 30th WorldSBK win, and after a celebratory wheelie at Siberia stopped out of the iconic corner to celebrate with his 'local' mates from Cowes and Bright — he spends his Aussie summers shuttling between the two Victorian towns with his Phillip Island wife, Tatia, and two young sons, Jake and Tyler.

"It was a difficult race because I was at the front for most of the race," said Rea, "Every lap was '+0' on the board and by the end I was making my personal best laps — but Chaz was still there.

"I attempted to close the door but left it a little open at MG (turn 10). Then when Chaz ran a little bit wide I was able to square off and move back into the lead and take the win — a great way to start the season.

"I am really happy and looking forward to tomorrow's race now."

Rea is now chasing down Colin Edwards (31) and Troy Corser (33) on the all-time WorldSBK winners' list, led by Carl Fogarty (59) from Troy Bayliss (52) and Noriyuki Haga (42).

Davies said: "I thought about trying to pass earlier on the last lap, but I saved it for that last lunge. I had a go at it, but I felt the front-end twitching and I didn't obviously want to do anything too stupid.

"It was a good race and I really enjoyed it. It was also a great turnaround from testing earlier in the week when the bike certainly wasn't working as well as it is now."

At one stage, the race featured a freight train of up to 10 riders at the front, but as the pressure intensified the likes of polesitter Tom Sykes (Kawasaki), Nicky Hayden (Honda), Davide Giugliano (Ducati) and Sylvain Guintoli (Yamaha) dropped off the pace, with Rea mostly leading from the front in his typically unfussed and methodical manner.

Van der Mark was the last rider to lose the tow, and he only managed to cross the finish line just of Giugliano, who set the fastest lap of the race (1:31.445) on the final 4.448km circuit.

The gap between Rea and Giugliano was 0.647 seconds.

Sykes was fifth, just in front of Guintoli, followed by Leon Camier (MV Agusta), Jordi Torres (BMW Motorrad), the late-fading Hayden and Brookes.

Sykes was the only other rider to lead the 22-lapper, but over the space of three laps during the mid-stanza of the race he was shuffled back to sixth position and could not work his way back to the front on the factory ZX-10R.

Meanwhile, Guintoli's teammate Alex Lowes was as high as sixth but crashed out on lap 16, while another to bite the dust — agonisingly — was German rookie Markus Reiterberger (BMW Motorrad) on the final turn in the race.

Reiterberger's unceremonious exit gifted Brookes a top 10 finish after he was as far back as 18th position on lap one.

"We've got a good base to build on, and we have to keep the developments coming," said Brookes. "There was good work done on the bike overnight for today, so we know we the improvements are working.

Considering how started the week, top 10 is okay and to have our first points is nice, but it's not where we want to be. Now that we've got data and my input from race one, I hope we can make further changes that will be more productive."

The second Australian, Ducati rider Mike Jones, was 14th, which was good enough to score 2pts in his first ever WorldSBK race.

Race two is at 3:00pm tomorrow, as Rea chases the first clean sweep at Phillip Island since 2011.

The world supersport race will also be held on Sunday, an 18-lapper at 1:30pm, with tireless Turk Kenan Sofuoglu on pole position from American Patrick Jacobsen (Honda), Swiss new face Randy Krummenacher (Kawasaki), Federico Caricasulo (Honda), MV Agusta due Lorenzo Zanetti (MV Agusta), Alex Baldolini (MV Agusta), Christian Gamarino (Kawasaki) and Jules Cluzel (MV Agusta).

Cluzel has won the last two WorldSSP races at Phillip Island.

Anthony West (Yamaha) will be the first Aussie on the grid in 15th position, three ahead of Aiden Wagner (MV Agusta). Then it's Glenn Scott (Honda) in 20th, Alex Phillis (Honda) in 23rd, Mitch Levy (Yamaha) in 24th, Kane Burns (Suzuki) in 25th, and 16-year-old Lachlan Epis (Kawasaki) in 27th.

RESULTS HERE