Kawasaki's Jonathan Rea took his tenth win of 2017 with a fantastic ride at the Portuguese Round - which saw him dominate the race from pole and cross the line 6.189s seconds ahead of second placed Chaz Davies. Marco Melandri just held off Leon Camier for third place on the finish straight.
Rea was untouchable over the 20 lap contest around the 4.592km Autodromo Internacional do Algarve at Portimao as he shot away from the head of the grid and soon built up an unbridgeable lead at the front.
The victory was Rea’s 18th podium in 19 races this year and the Northern Irishman now enjoys a 95 point lead at the head of the standings.
After a crash in SP2 Davies also rode brilliantly, coming from ninth on the grid to take a highly creditable second place, beating his teammate Melandri across the finish line by just under four seconds.
Melandri in turn beat Camier by just +0.342 as the Brit chased him hard in the final stages of the race.
The top five also featured Michael van der Mark, with Jordi Torres sixth and Eugene Laverty seventh.
The top ten was completed by Lorenzo Savadori, Xavi Fores and Roman Ramos.
There were crashes for Stefan Bradl and Leandro Mercado, meaning DNFs for both, although the pair escaped their incidents otherwise unscathed.
Tom Sykes missed the race and is out of action for the rest of the weekend after sustaining a finger injury in an FP3 crash earlier on Saturday.
On Sunday at the Portuguese Round the WorldSBK riders will go again in Race 2 at 3pm local time.
