2015 Imola World Superbike Race Two Results: Attrition Strikes

World Superbike race two would start with only twenty riders, Canepa not qualifying and Salom out with an injured wrist and elbow from his crash in race one. It would finish with far fewer.

At the race start, Jonathan Rea took the lead going outside the pack to pass Tom Sykes, the Kawasakis leading the Ducatis of Davide Giugliano and Chaz Davies and the Aprilias of Leon Haslam and Jordi Torres. Further back on the first lap , World Champion Sylvain Guintoli crashed out for his second DNF of the year, while Davies and Giugliano swapped places back and forth.

As Rea and Sykes built a gap from Giugliano and Davies, they in turn dropped off Haslam and Torres who had Michael van der Mark to worry about. The three pairings became more distinct over the next couple of laps, with Davies passing Giugliano for third on the fourth lap.

Tom Sykes was keeping up with Rea, but Rea's exit from the chicanes was his strong point and that didn't allow Sykes to use his superior braking skill to do much more than close the gap; This was most visible with Rea's fast exit from Variante Alta meaning Sykes couldn't get close enough to lunge underneath him at Rivazza, and even when Sykes set the fastest lap on lap seven, all he could do was close the gap Rea had built in the preceding laps.

Attrition started to play a part, with Randy de Puniet and Leon Camier both retiring on lap six and both van der Mark and Leon Haslam crashing out two laps later, with Haslam nursing what could be a wrist injury.

As Rea started to escape from Sykes, with Rea over a second ahead of his teammate, Sykes responded with the fastest lap of the race on lap eleven and closed the distance to under a second. Rea responded with a fastest lap, extending his gap at the end of the twelfth lap to a second and a half. With the gap from Sykes to Davies approaching eight seconds, and the gap from Davies to Giugliano at almost six, the podium looked like it was decided, but with five laps left to go, Davies suffered a mechanical issue and was waved off the track by the marshals. Jordi Torres, having made quick work of a slowing Giugliano, was suddenly eighteen seconds off the back of Tom Sykes with a podium in his grasp.

Jonathan Rea kept increasing his lead, once again getting stronger as the race advanced, lapping both the Team Toth BMWs, both of whom would finish in the points. Tom Sykes was just ticking laps off safely behind him, building a twenty second gap from Torres at the flag.

Jonathan Rea took the flag and immediately slowed down to high-five his team at the pit wall, having taken his 23rd race win on his 150th World Superbike race, and the eighth win of ten races this year, putting him eighty seven points clear of non-finisher Leon Haslam in the title chase.

After his showboating victory lap, Rea rolled into Parc Fermé and pointed to his digital dash to reveal a sticker marked #4Joan, honouring Joan Lascorz who ended his career at Imola in 2012.

Tom Sykes moved up to third place in the championship with his second place, now 112 points off Jonathan Rea, and is twenty five points behind Leon Haslam.

Jordi Torres, a little bewildered with the Parc Fermé procedure on his first visit, maintains his fifth place in the championship hunt, behind Chaz Davies.

Two riders not starting, seven not finishing and the loss of Team Hero EBR meant that only thirteen riders finished the race.

Results: