Rutter powers to podium.

Michael Rutter powered his HM Plant Honda Racing CBR1000RR Fireblade to its fifth podium in five races at the third round of the 2004 British Superbike Championship. The 31-year-old Leicestershire rider finished just 0.6 seconds behind second-placed John Reynolds at Snetterton.

The first Superbike leg, which ended with Yukio Kagayama on the top step of the podium, was one of the closest run of the season so far. Rutter rode hard and battled his way through the pack to pose a strong challenge to the race leaders, despite being slow off the start line.

After some hard braking into the Esses on lap eight, Rutter passed his team-mate Ryuichi Kiyonari to claim fifth place and battle for a higher position. Eight laps later he overtook Sean Emmett to claim third place and close in on the two Suzuki riders.

Twenty-one-year-old Japanese rider Kiyonari showed great promise in the early part of the 25-lap race. He launched his HM Plant Honda Racing Fireblade into third position from the start line. Despite another rider almost taking his front wheel away on the first corner, he ran wide and regained composure to battle for a good position at the front of the pack.

Unfortunately, rear traction problems slowed the Superbike rookie down in the latter part of the race and he dropped back to ninth before fighting back to finish seventh on the 1.952-mile Norfolk circuit.

"I'm going to have to work harder on my start for the second race, because like the last two rounds I was slow off the line," said Rutter at the end of race one at Snetterton. "This left me with a lot of hard work to do until the chequered flag, but I was unable to pull back what would have been a winning advantage at the end of the race.

"I felt like I was slow in the early part of each lap, so I had to battle to regain my pace each time. My overall package was good so with a better start I'm confident of pulling back some points on John Reynolds after the second leg."

For team-mate Ryuichi Kiyonari it was a case of loosing the rear as the race went on. "I had a good start but as the race went on I had a slight problem with rear traction," explains the Japanese star. "This meant that I couldn't get out of the corners as fast as I would have liked to power down the straights. It's likely that we might make some changes to the set-up for race two and that will hopefully help me to get closer to the front."