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Laguna Seca WSBK: Davies beats Rea in Race 2, Bautista retires

Chaz Davies dominated the final World Superbike race at Laguna Seca to secure his first win in over a year, while Ducati teammate Alvaro Bautista retired with a bike issue.

Chaz Davies, Aruba.it Racing-Ducati Team

Chaz Davies, Aruba.it Racing-Ducati Team

Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Davies seized the holeshot off the line, and held Kawasaki's Jonathan Rea at bay in the early stages before easing into the distance to seal his first win aboard the new V4 R Panigale.

Winless since last year's Aragon round, Davies squeezed through on poleman Rea at Turn 1 and held onto the position at the Andretti hairpin, with Puccetti's Toprak Razgatlioglu moving up to third.

Bautista – carrying a shoulder injury from his Superpole race crash – dropped a position to 11th after a tentative start, though recovered to 10th ahead of Leandro Mercado by the end of the opening tour.

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However, the his race would last just a handful more corners before a technical issue with his Ducati forced him into pitlane at the end of lap two to complete a clean-sweep of non-finishes in America.

Rea ran Davies close in the opening laps, keeping his advantage at under a second. But by lap seven, the Ducati rider slowly started to extend his lead.

Davies continued to open up the gulf between himself and Rea to over three seconds to cruise to the chequered flag.

Rea consolidated second place to extend his championship lead to 81 points over Bautista heading into the seven-week summer break.

Razgatlioglu finished a distant third, securing his sixth podium of the season, with Yamaha's Alex Lowes just over half a second ahead of the chasing Tom Sykes (BMW) in fourth.

Leon Haslam hounded Sykes in the closing stages after the BMW rider made a mistake exiting Turn 6, which allowed Lowes through, but could do nothing to usurp him and was sixth.

Ten Kate's Loris Baz nursed his SCX tyre to get his customer Yamaha into seventh ahead of Pedercini's Jordi Torres, while Marco Melandri (GRT) and Barni Racing's Michael Ruben Rinaldi completed the top 10.

As well as Bautista, Michael van der Mark was forced into retirement on lap five when his works Yamaha encountered a mechanical problem.

Race results:

Cla # Rider Bike Laps Gap
1 7 United Kingdom Chaz Davies
Ducati 25
2 1 United Kingdom Jonathan Rea
Kawasaki 25 3.333
3 54 Turkey Toprak Razgatlioglu
Kawasaki 25 11.658
4 22 United Kingdom Alex Lowes
Yamaha 25 16.259
5 66 United Kingdom Tom Sykes
BMW 25 16.823
6 91 United Kingdom Leon Haslam
Kawasaki 25 19.449
7 76 France Loris Baz
Yamaha 25 23.637
8 81 Spain Jordi Torres
Kawasaki 25 24.572
9 33 Italy Marco Melandri
Yamaha 25 25.919
10 21 Italy Michael Ruben Rinaldi
Ducati 25 30.742
11 36 Argentina Leandro Mercado
Kawasaki 25 32.177
12 50 Ireland Eugene Laverty
Ducati 25 38.508
13 28 Germany Markus Reiterberger
BMW 25 41.862
14 11 Germany Sandro Cortese
Yamaha 25 41.989
15 23 Japan Ryuichi Kiyonari
Honda 25 55.483
16 95 United States JD Beach
Yamaha 25 1'00.385
17 52 Italy Alessandro Del Bianco
Honda 25 1'12.973
60 Netherlands Michael van der Mark
Yamaha 3
19 Spain Alvaro Bautista
Ducati 1

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