Sunday 7 September 2014 14:11, UK
Marco Melandri clinched a double win in the Superbike World Championship round at Jerez to deny deny title hopeful Sylvain Guintoli more valuable points.
In both races the Aprilia rider steadily worked his way to the front of the pack before overtaking team-mate Guintoli and forcing championship leader Tom Sykes (Kawasaki) into third place in the process.
The outcome in southern Spain means there are 31 points between Sykes and Guintoli with four races remaining.
In the second race, Melandri initially ran fifth behind Kawasaki's Loris Baz, who started from pole position, while Guintoli came up the inside at the start of lap three to leave his rivals behind.
Sykes was struggling to keep up with the Frenchman and watched helplessly as Italy's Melandri moved past him and into second place on lap 11.
Melandri had passed his team-mate with four laps remaining in race one and this time around he overtook Guintoli with five laps remaining and never looked back.
He is mathematically still in contention for the WSBK title but, at 85 points behind, it looks like the 2014 crown will go to either Sykes or Guintoli.
Chaz Davies rode his Ducati into fourth place while Jonathan Rea (Honda) was fifth ahead of Eugene Laverty (Suzuki) and Baz in seventh.
Leon Haslam (Honda) and Alex Lowes (Suzuki) were eighth and ninth while Toni Elias (Aprilia) rounded out the top 10.
