An incident involving Chaz Davies and Eugene Laverty at Turn 2 on the opening tour brought out an early red flag, with the race distance being reduced to 19 laps.

Rea had moved up from ninth on the grid to fourth by the end of the first lap of the original start when it was stopped, and his progress in the second start was even swifter, as he was up to second by the final corner of the opening lap.

He technically crossed the start/finish line in the lead ahead of Michael van der Mark, but couldn't clear the Dutch rider in earnest until midway round the second lap.

From that point, there was no stopping Rea, who raced to a one-second lead within two laps and ended up 2.7s clear of the opposition at the finish to clinch the 52nd WSBK win of his career.

It moves him level with Troy Bayliss, with only Carl Fogarty (59) still ahead in the all-time winners' list, and also wrapped up the manufacturers' title for Kawasaki.

While Rea's win was never in doubt from lap 2 onwards, the battle for second was more intriguing, as van der Mark headed a train comprising the two works Ducatis, Yamaha teammate Alex Lowes and the second Kawasaki of Tom Sykes in the early stages.

Marco Melandri was the man with the pace, but his progress was slowed by him running wide on several occasions while trying to attack van der Mark.

That allowed Ducati teammate Davies into second place, with Melandri taking until lap 10 to finally clear van der Mark's Yamaha.

Melandri then soon caught up with teammate Davies, finally making his move at the first corner at the start of the penultimate lap.

Soon after dropping behind Melandri, van der Mark ran wide, dropping him behind teammate Lowes, while another error by the Dutchman the following lap saw him drop behind Sykes into sixth.

A fierce battle for seventh was won by Xavi Fores (Barni Ducati) ahead of Puccetti Kawasaki stand-in Sylvain Guintoli and Leandro Mercado (Ioda Aprilia). Jordi Torres (Althea BMW) completed the top 10.

Race results:

Pos.	#	Rider	Bike	Gap
1	1	Jonathan Rea	Kawasaki	32'09.319
2	33	Marco Melandri	Ducati	2.732
3	7	Chaz Davies	Ducati	3.974
4	22	Alex Lowes	Yamaha	4.624
5	66	Tom Sykes	Kawasaki	6.454
6	60	Michael van der Mark	Yamaha	10.120
7	12	Xavi Fores	Ducati	15.594
8	05	Sylvain Guintoli	Kawasaki	15.902
9	36	Leandro Mercado	Aprilia	16.396
10	81	Jordi Torres	BMW	19.129
11	40	Roman Ramos	Kawasaki	19.673
12	2	Leon Camier	MV Agusta	20.353
13	35	Raffaele De Rosa	BMW	34.169
14	121	Alessandro Andreozzi	Yamaha	38.627
15	72	Takumi Takahashi	Honda	45.421
16	84	Riccardo Russo	Yamaha	45.469
17	34	Davide Giugliano	Honda	1 lap
18	32	Lorenzo Savadori	Aprilia	2 laps
Ret	37	Ondrej Jezek	Kawasaki	6 laps
Ret	50	Eugene Laverty	Aprilia	9 laps
Ret	99	Dominic Schmitter	Suzuki	19 laps