Under grey skies and an hour after a moving main straight tribute to the late Nicky Hayden, the first race of the Donington WorldSBK weekend got underway. It was a man-to-man battle between Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team) and Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team) for the most part with Sykes eventually prevailing after a mid-race attempted pass on his team-mate was rebuffed.
With a handful of laps left Sykes made his final move and eased away from Rea for his first win of 2017.
Rea was on course to be second but crashed out down Craner Curves late in the race, losing the rear end, leaving Sykes the victor by 16.5 seconds.
To the delight of the local fans, Leon Haslam (Kawasaki Puccetti Racing) was second – a rare wildcard podium rider in the modern WorldSBK era, and a reward for a rocket start from the third row and race-long aggression.
Despite being run wide on the first corner, Alex Lowes (Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team) recovered to take his first podium on a Yamaha.
Chaz Davies had led the race until he fell, finishing eighth, with Marco Melandri (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) the top Ducati rider in fourth place – and behind Lowes after making a late mistake exiting the Melbourne hairpin and running on the grass into the final left hander.
Michael van der Mark (Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team) secured fifth place and another British rider, Leon Camier (MV Agusta Reparto Corse) was sixth.
Privateer rider Leandro Mercado (IodaRacing Team Aprilia) was seventh, Davies eighth and Jordi Torres (Althea BMW Racing Team) ninth. Xavi Fores (Barni Racing Ducati) placed tenth.
In the championship Sykes is exactly 50 points behind Rea now, with one more Donington race to come on Sunday.
