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The MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship season is ready for action and with the testing well and truly underway and liveries slowly being uncovered, a new year of excitement is moments away. However, in this, the last week of February, usually we’re waiting for the Australian Round, the traditional starting point. In homage to this, we look back at the biggest fights from the Phillip Island battleground; we started the week with WorldSBK’s closest finish of all time from Race 1 in 2010, before going back to 1999 when Troy Corser beat Carl Fogarty on the run to the line. In this flashback, the theme continues.

2018 was a year like no other and it started with a bang Down Under. Jonathan Rea came into the season off the back of surgery and wasn’t fighting 100% fit. In Race 1, he had a problem, dropping him to fifth by the end of the race, whilst in Race 2, he was right back to the front. However, Race 1’s winner, Marco Melandri, had the bit between his teeth and the Aruba.it Racing – Ducati rider was on a mission for his first double since 2014. Melandri was second coming onto the Gardner Straight, but the Ducati power put him into lead briefly before Rea fought back, with Xavi Fores keeping a watching brief on his Barni Ducati in third.

I looked like Rea had it in the bag as he pulled a gap on Melandri through the third sector, but the 2002 250cc World Champion and Race 1 winner wasn’t going to give up. He used the Ducati power and the slipstream to blast on through, pinching Race 2 on the line, beating Rea by just 0.021s, whilst Xavi Fores got his first dry-weather podium in third place. In what would turn out to be his last win – and Italy’s last win for two years – Melandri made sure that it was an impactful one.

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