Neither rider could do anything about Rutter though, who celebrated his first race win since
Oulton Park in May 2005 by throwing his boots into the crowd on the cool down lap. The win was all the sweeter given Rutter is from the village of Kirkby Mallory that surrounds the circuit.
Unsurprisingly, the final results favoured those who started with slick tyres, with the order mirroring which riders were most confident in the early stages. As such, Tom Sykes and Karl Harris battled their way up the order in tandem for fourth and fifth, ahead of Haslam, who battled to sixth on his tired Honda.
Andrews was another to maintain enough momentum for his best result of the season in seventh, ahead of Leon Camier, whose eighth place finish was scant reward at the end of a difficult weekend. Tristan Palmer and Scott Smart rounded out the top ten.
The BSB circus now heads further north to the Oulton Park circuit for the seventh round of the championship, but with Shane Byrne now 97 points ahead of Cal Crutchlow, the title battle is quickly becoming something of a foregone conclusion...
