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Jonathan Rea carved his first dent into Alvaro Bautista’s lead at Imola with two wins from the two completed races giving his seemingly dwindling World Superbike Championship title hopes a welcome – and timely – boost.

Though rain stopped play to prevent Rea from attempting a triple success from pole position, his wins in race one and the sprint race, combined with Bautista’s second and third, sees him whittle the margin down to 43 points.

Despite the crushing disappointment of his race one DNF on the first lap, Davies’ pole position and sprint race second place ahead of Aruba.it Ducati team-mate Bautista – the first time he has qualified and finished ahead of the Spaniard this year – will come as a big confidence boost for the Welshman.

Hampered by illness this weekend, Alex Lowes nonetheless soldiered on for two well deserved top eight results to retain third overall, with Michael van der Mark going on to fly the Yamaha flag at a track not renowned for suiting the R1. They sit six points apart in the overall classification.

Leon Haslam loses ground in fifth overall after a disappointing weekend, ahead of the much-improved Davies, who rises to sixth at the expense of Marco Melandri, who endured an anonymous weekend in Italy.

A podium winner in race one, Toprak Razgatlioglu was one of the weekend’s big winners’, leaping from 11thto eighth overall on the Puccetti Kawasaki, ahead of Sandro Cortese and Tom Sykes, the latter not scoring the points he deserved after a DNF from race one forced him to start from the pit-lane in race two. The BMW man produced a stellar charge to eighth in ten laps, only to see his race three hopes scuppered by the cancellation.

Elsewhere, Lorenzo Zanetti, Hector Barbera and Tommy Bridewell are new to the leaderboard after scoring in race one at Imola.

A particularly impressive result by Bridewell, the BSB front runner only rode the Go Eleven Ducati on Saturday morning but finished 12thin race one. Going on to finish 11thin a race of no retirements in the sprint race, though that didn’t earn him points, he’d have been well placed to a top ten in race three but for the cancellation.

With no clashes between WSBK and BSB until July, it’s possible Bridewell could get a stay on the bike at Jerez should Eugene Laverty doesn’t return until full fitness.