Lorenzo Savadori, who already missed the first race, Yonny Herández and Wayne Maxell would not start this race. The lights went out and Jonathan Rea did not take long to pass Xavi Forés for the lead, but there were lots of position changes in lap 1 and Eugene Laverty ended up on the lead.
The Aprilia Irish rider even managed to open a small gap while Rea, Chaz Davies, Leon Camier, Marco Melandri and Alex Lowes were fighting for second place. Laverty crashed on lap 3, so that fight became a battle for the lead, which was at the moment in Davies’ hands, but the position changes were constant. Jacob Gagne crashed in lap 7.
On lap 10, some riders from the lead group, including the leader Forés, went into the pits for the mandatory pit-stop. The official Ducatis took more advantage of the situation, and the order after the pit-stops was Davies, Melandri, Forés, Lowes, Tom Sykes, Rea, Michael van der Mark and Camier. But only a lap later, Davies crashed, being the second rider today who has an incident while leading.
Forés became the leader again and opened, next to the Kawasakis, a three-rider small group that opened a slight gap to their rivals, but Melandri would not let them escape so easily and tried to catch them. The Italian rider ended up catching them and passed and left Sykes behind.
With 4 laps to go, Rea tried to attack Forés, but the Spanish rider held the lead. The Kawasaki rider finally took the lead on the next lap and Melandri also overtook Forés. The Ducati Italian rider wanted the double win and tried to pass Rea on the last lap.
Rea held the lead, but Melandri ended up winning the battle on the last metres, thanks to the draft on the main straight. The Italian rider had won both races this weekend and Rea recovered from his bad result yesterday with a second place. Forés finishes third and gets a podium finish for the second time in his career. Sykes, Lowes, Van der Mark, Jordi Torres, Loris Baz and Toprak Razgatlioglu complete the Top 10.
With these results, Melandri is now leading the championship with 50 points, followed by Sykes with 33, Rea with 31 and Forés with 29. The next round of the championship will be held at the Buriram Circuit, in Thailand, the 24th and 25th of March.
