Rutter on pole in Macau

Michael Rutter is on course to be the first man to win three Macau GP’s since Steve Hislop after he slotted his Ducati 998 on pole in today’s qualifying.

He needed just eight laps of the 3.9-mile circuit to slot home an unbeatable time of 2:28.286, 2.3 seconds faster than second placed man John McGuinness on the Zong Shen FireBlade.

Rutter is running the same bike he took to the runners-up spot in the 2002 MCN British Superbike championship with Renegade Racing.

David Jefferies, who blew the motor in his GSX-R1000 in yesterday’s practice, recovered to post a time of 2:32.037 – good enough for third spot, with Germany’s Markus Barth fourth on the Weber Kawasaki ZX-7RR.

British riders look favourites to take all three podium spots. They occupy eight out of the top 10 slots on the grid and count three former Macau GP winners (Rutter, Jefferies and John McGuinness), four TT winners (Rutter, Jefferies, Iain Duffus and McGuinness) and a World Endurance champion (Brian Morrison) amongst their number.

1)M Rutter 2)J McGuinness 3)D Jefferies 4)M Barth 5)B Morrison 6)Gus Scott 7)I Duffus 8)V Haskovec 9)A Patterson 10)J Griffiths