Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati) took an excellent victory in Race 2 at the French Round, seizing control in the opening stages and not looking back from there to eventually cross the line three seconds ahead of nearest challenger Alex Lowes (Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team). Completing the podium in third was Lowes’ Yamaha colleague Michael van der Mark after a great battle between the pair.

Coming from 11^th on the grid Davies charged through the field to register his 27^th WorldSBK win in tricky conditions as rain fell sporadically over the 4.411km Magny-Cours circuit during the race. Behind him Lowes and Van der Mark contested second place and the Englishman ultimately beat his Dutch teammate by 1.55s after an intriguing duel between the Yamaha duo.

Xavi Fores (BARNI Racing Team) crossed the line fourth, followed by fifth placed Marco Melandri (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati).

Leandro Mercado (IODARacing), Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team), Jordi Torres (Althea BMW Racing Team), Roman Ramos (Team Kawasaki Go Eleven) and Raffaele de Rosa (Althea BMW Racing Team) all featured in the top ten.

Early in the race Eugene Laverty (Milwaukee Aprilia) crashed at turn 16 and in the aftermath of his accident Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team) appeared to clip Laverty’s Aprilia RSV4 RF. The newly crowned triple championcrowned triple champion Rea then went back into pit lane and would retire from the race due to a damaged footpeg, whilst Laverty picked up his machine to finally finish the race 17th.

A technical problem at turn 15 for Leon Camier (MV Agusta Reparto Corse) ended his race at the halfway point, when the British rider was in contention for an elusive podium finish. Lorenzo Savadori (Milwaukee Aprilia) was an unfortunate last lap crasher.

Back to back World Superbike Champion for three consecutive seasons, Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing Team) took a stunning victory which in saw him cross the line an astonishing 16 seconds ahead of his rivals in tricky conditions at the French Round.

Rain hit the Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours on Saturday morning, and in a wet FP3 and Superpole riders were able to get to grips with the conditions of the track, as it was only the third day of 2017 in which they have endured some wet track action.

Securing pole position despite a crash Superpole, the 31 year old clearly had one task on his mind which was to win. Getting a strong start off the line, Rea never looked back and cruised to the victory as the track began to dry in central France.

Crossing the line to take his 50^th WorldSBK victory, and the world title, Jonathan Rea has made history in 2017.

“I have no words for how it feels right now,” begins an overwhelmed Rea. “I just feel so honoured to be riding for a manufacturer like Kawasaki, to be able to join the team and to win like this is amazing."

"I have to do my work and turn up every weekend and be sharp, but I couldn’t do it without the support of Kawasaki Racing Team and my friends and family."

Adding to his successes, Rea continues: “I think the 50^th race victory will get a little bit lost in the moment with the championship but I am equally as proud of that. To win three titles in a row, I have no words."

"I don’t think I’ll understand exactly what I’m doing until I look back on my career until I’m retired, but at the moment I’m with my team and still really eager to do more."

"So now we have to turn our attentions to 2018, and facing some bigger challenges and we’re ready for it."

Referring to the difficult race he faced today, the record breaker added: “I wanted to win that race so bad, but not at all costs. Riding here in the wet at Magny-Cours you are on a knife edge."

"The dream is to win the championship by winning the race, it wasn’t easy."

Getting ever close to a podium finish, Leon Camier (MV Agusta Reparto Corse) secured a top four position finish in race one at the French Round, as the British rider battled through wet conditions.

Unable to catch his rivals in the podium fighting positions, the British rider will be hoping to continue to improve the pace of his MV Agusta, but admits he was frustrated to not be close enough to secure a podium finish in France.

Finding it difficult to secure a strong pace for the wet conditions with his 1000 F4, Camier was able to work through some problems throughout the race and will be hoping to make some more steps forward in the closing rounds.

With the weather looking to be dry for Sunday’s race two, of which Camier will start from pole position, he has explained how his early weekend pace helps boost his confidence into the race weekend, but a lot will now depend on levels of luck.

“I can’t be unhappy with fourth but I sort of am,” begins Camier. “I just want the next step. We tried some different changes in Superpole and it didn’t work for the wet. I know exactly what I want from the bike but it isn’t working because it’s sort of a contradicting thing I want."

"By the end of the race I didn’t have anything left really, I was risking so much to try and stay with Marco, he had some very different lines and it was working really well but I just couldn’t catch him.”

Turning his attentions to tomorrow, Camier explains: “There are some things we need to improve for the dry but we had a good base on Friday, there’s a couple of things to improve but we can see how it goes tomorrow.

Our pace on Friday gave us confidence and we’ve been strong in the last two rounds, you can’t complain to be beaten by the Kawaski and Ducati isn’t so bad. We need a bit of luck to go our way so we need to have a good race tomorrow and see what happens.”

Jonathan Rea charged to an excellent victory at the Magny-Cours circuit in France on Saturday to secure ahistoric third consecutive WorldSBK title, crossing the line over 16 seconds ahead of second placed Marco Melandri (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati), with Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team) finishing third.

Rea made a determined start from pole position and soon pulled clear of the rest of the pack, keeping the hammer down over the 21 laps of the race in the wet-drying conditions at the Pirelli French Round to remain unchallenged at the front.

His impressive performance gave him a 12^th victory of the season and saw him become the first ever rider to win three successive WorldSBK titles.

It was a truly gritty ride from Rea’s teammate Sykes as the Yorkshireman returned to action with a third place result, having had surgery on a finger injury less than two weeks ago - after a Portimao crash. Sykes completed the podium after just losing out on second place to Melandri in the final stages of the race.

Five seconds off the rostrum positions was Leon Camier who had another excellent ride for MV Agusta Reparto Corse. Another 19 seconds back on his compatriot Camier was Alex Lowes (Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team) who rounded out the top five.

Eugene Laverty (Milwaukee Aprilia) and Leandro Mercado (IODARacing) were sixth and seventh respectively, whilst Davide Giugliano (Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team) was the eighth rider home.

Early in the race there was a crash for Michael van der Mark (Pata Yamaha Official WorldSBK Team), which also saw Xavi Fores (BARNI Racing Team) go down, but remarkably Dutchman Van der Mark fought back to finish ninth, ahead of Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati).

Race 2 at the Pirelli French Round will get going at the 4.411km Magny-Cours track at 1pm local time on Sunday