The first of the major motorsports events for 2013 kicked off at Philip Island in Australia with the beginning of the World Superbike Racing series. In the first of the two races, Sylvain Guintoli riding an Aprilia RSV4 Factory machine overcame a bad start to charge to the front of the field, in the process overtaking his more fancied teammate Eugene Laverty who led for a greater part of the race, to emerge the winner. The Frenchman Guintoli who had to fill the big shoes of the petit Max Biaggi whose place he took in the official Aprilia entry made sure that his achievements will be considered good enough as a replacement for the veteran Biaggi who retired at the end of the last season as the reigning World Champion. Eugene Laverty finished second in the race on the second of the official Aprilia entries. The podium turned out to be an all Aprilia affair with Michel Fabrizio riding for the Red Devils Aprilia team fighting gamely for the second place before being beaten to the finish line by Laverty by a few centimetres.
Fourth place went to Chaz Davies riding for the Goldbet BMW Motorrad team now being run as the factory effort by the Italia BMW team. Fifth and sixth went to the Kawasaki Racing Team’s riders Tom Sykes and Loris Baz. Tom Sykes riding with a fracture to his right wrist and a couple of bruised ribs that he sustained when he fell in the preseason testing showed a big heart in holding on to fifth position while his teammate the young Frenchman Loris Baz riding in World Superbike for the first time at the Philip Island circuit rounded off the top ten.
The only significant crash that happened during the first race was when Carlos Checa on the brand new Ducati 1199 Panigale torpedoed Marco Melandri on the BMW S1000R and both were instantly out of the race while dicing for top positions. While Melandri was up immediately after the crash, Checa lay still and was taken to the medical centre for check ups. Now news of his condition has yet been given.