RR » Macau: Rutter victorious for eighth time

18 November 2012
Macau: Rutter victorious for eighth time
Michael Rutter was in a class of his own as he triumphed for a record eighth time at the 46th Macau Grand Prix this morning.

The British Superbike stalwart held off a determined bid from Riders Ducati ace Martin Jessopp to win by almost five seconds as he underlined his status as the master of the Guia street circuit.

Simon Andrews, back in action for the first time after recovering from severe injuries following a crash in the Superbike race at the Isle of Man TT in June, filled the final place on the rostrum with a superb ride to third on the Ice Valley BMW.

The top six was completed by Lincolnshire's Gary Johnson on the Quattro Plant Honda followed by Austrian competitor Horst Saiger (Saiger Kawasaki) and Conor Cummins on the Tyco Suzuki.

John McGuinness, who qualified in second place, was seventh on the second of Robin Croft's SMT Honda Fireblades after overshooting at Lisboa, finishing ahead of Jimmy Storrar, Dan Kneen and James Hillier.

Rutter moved into the lead on lap one after Johnson briefly hit the front and quickly established an advantage of 1.6 seconds over the chasing pack of Johnson, McGuinness and Andrews.

Jessopp was soon the man on the move after a less than perfect start from the front row left him in sixth position.

Andrews edged ahead of McGuinness on the third lap and then ran wide on the brakes as he attempted to wrestle second place away from Johnson, who retook the position as Andrews slipped to fourth when Jessopp picked off a place at the start of lap four.

Rutter was continuing to stretch his lead on the SMT Honda and has established a cushion of 3.6 seconds by the time Jessopp squeezed ahead of Johnson on the exit of Melco hairpin.

Jessopp put in a succession of fast laps on the big Ducati to reduce the deficit to Rutter to 2.6 seconds, but the experienced West Midlands rider soon responded to the danger and began to pull away once more as the race reached a climax.

Andrews was now into third place on the S1000-RR after demoting Johnson to fourth, while McGuinness overshot at Lisboa and dropped to sixth as he too tried to find a way past Johnson in the closing stages.

Rutter's official margin of victory after 10 laps was 4.9s over Jessopp as the pair repeated last year's result.

Steve Mercer was 11th ahead of James McBride, with Irishman Steve Heneghan on the Quattro Plant Kawasaki 18th.

Newcomer Jamie Hamilton was 20th on the RPM Performance Kawasaki, one place behind fellow Northern Irishman Davy Morgan.

Tagged as: Michael Rutter , Simon Andrews , John McGuinness , Isle of Man TT , smt honda
« Take me back to the RR Homepage


Related Pictures

Michael Rutter leads his SMT Honda team-mate John McGuinness at the Macau Grand Prix
Honda TT Legends riders John McGuinness, Michael Rutter and Michael Dunlop
Vauxhall KMR Kawasaki riders Michael Rutter and Jeremy McWilliams with team boss Ryan Farquhar at the North West 200
Dan Stewart, Isle of Man TT

Join the conversation - Add your comment

Please do not post any personal abuse or attacks.

  • (this will never be displayed, but is required for email notification of follow-up comments)

    Email me when this topic is updated.

Note: Your comment may take a few minutes to appear

Although the administrators and moderators of this website will attempt to keep all objectionable comments off these pages, it is impossible for us to review all messages. All messages express the views of the poster, and neither Crash Media Group nor Crash.Net will be held responsible for the content of any message. We do not vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message, and are not responsible for the contents of any message. If you find a message objectionable, please contact us and inform us of the problem or use the [report] function next to the offending post. Any message that does not conform with the policy of this service can be edited or removed with immediate effect.


Md Zane - Unregistered

November 18, 2012 10:45 AM

Congrats to the Blade and the brave.

Please if any one spots this race beeing aired on British TV please post a comment about,have watched the last few years but its spotting it in the tv scheduling,this is a not want to miss race for me.


Related Stories