Image: Supplied.

Defending champion Jonathan Rea has won a nail-biting Tissot Superpole Race at Phillip Island during round one of the 2020 Motul Superbike World Championship, Yamaha Finance round.

After a high-speed crash in race one, the Kawasaki Racing Team top gun responded like a true champion to win a nail-biting thriller.

Rea won ahead of race one victor Toprak Razgatlioglu (Pata Yamaha) and Scott Redding (Aruba.it Racing Ducati). Just 0.072s separated the trio after the frenetic 10-lapper, with Alex Lowes (Kawasaki Racing Team) right on the tail of the top three.

Michael van der Mark (Pata Yamaha), pole-setter Tom Sykes (BMW Motorrad), Loris Baz (Ten Kate Yamaha) and Leon Haslam (Team HRC Honda) saw out the top eight, plus Michael Rinaldi (Ducati) and Max Schieb (Kawasaki) completed the top 10 in the Superpole race.

Alvaro Bautista (Team HRC Honda) was a big name casualty after crashing at turn six. The victory was the first for Rea at Phillip Island since 2017, while race one winner Razgatlioglu consolidated his early lead in the 2020 championship.

Race three, a 22-lapper, will be held at 3:00pm this afternoon with American Garrett Gerloff (Yamaha) and Eugene Laverty (BMW) again missing after nasty concusssion-causing crashes in warm-up this morning.

Detailed results