Ivo Lopes survived a mid-race scare to claim victory in the first ESBK race at Circuito de Navarra on Saturday, while Javier Palomera secured the championship lead with second place.

With championship leader Steven Odendaal absent from the event due to other commitments, it handed his nearest rivals Palomera and Lopes the chance to take full advantage.

BMW Easyrace Team’s Lopes did just that, taking pole position in qualifying with an impressive margin of almost three quarters of a second to Team Honda Laglisse’s Palomera, who entered the event placed second in the standings. The top two were over a second clear of the rest of the field.

Lopes and Palomera marched away at the start of the 16-lap race on Saturday afternoon. The top two were closely matched in the opening exchanges of the contest, with Lopes building a lead of just over a second across the opening five laps.

He was able to extend that margin to 2.5 seconds on lap six, which grew to almost three seconds as the race reached its midway point.

The gap stabilised on lap eight, as the pair lapped within 0.005s of each other, though the lead extended to over three seconds for the first time on the ninth lap. Despite Lopes’ increasing lead, Palomera was still able to show pace to match Lopes, and he lapped 0.014s faster on the tenth lap.

The narrative threatened to change on lap 11, as Palomera was nine tenths of a second faster to close the gap down to 2.2 seconds with five laps still remaining.

Palmoera was quicker again on lap 12, but only by 0.039s as Lopes regained his composure. The lead stretched to 2.6s next time around, and increased back to almost three seconds with two laps to go.

Despite again lapping with similar times on the penultimate lap, Lopes stroked his bike home to win by 2.8 seconds, with Palomera settling for second.

Palomera jumped to the top of the championship standings thanks to his second place, while Lopes is now only two points behind Odendaal, who has dropped to second.

The top-two finished a long way clear of the third Superbike contender, with David Real over 22 seconds further back.

Mauro Gonzalez clung on to take a tight win in the Superstock 1000 class, finishing just 0.141s ahead of Lachlan Epis, with Yeray Saiz six seconds further back.

The second ESBK race will take place on Sunday at 14.05 CEST.

ESBK Spanish Superbike Championship, Circuito de Navarra, Race 1
1. Ivo Lopes, BMW Easyrace Team, 16 laps
2. Francisco Javier Palomera, Team Honda Laglisse, +2.807s
3. David Real, Kawasaki JDO Racing, +25.147s
4. Mauro Gonzalez, BMW Easyrace Team, +28.332s
5. Lachlan Epis, BMW Easyrace Team, +28.473s
6. Yeray Saiz, BMW Easyrace Team, +34.713s
7. Harry Khouri, New2 Project Yamaha, +43.484s
8. Anton Eremin, Erna Racing, +48.267s
9. Ville Valtonen, Team Sensetec, +48.703s
10. Samuel Diaz, Alma Racing Team, +1m07.561s

Click here to view the full race result. 

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