michael rutter
Michael Rutter continued his assault on the British Superbike Championship in the fifth round at Mallory Park, consolidating his position with two fourth place finishes.
But Mallory Park was not so kind to Riders.com team mate Martin Jessopp who was involved in a crash with Dan Linfoot in race one at Charlies Chicane on lap two, forcing the race to be red flagged and re-started.
Jessopp has since confirmed that he broke his tibia and fibula in the incident and also broke his left foot, and now faces a frustrating lay off from the Championship.
The accident took a bit of the shine off Rutter’s performance for the team, he had qualified fourth and despite problems with gearing on the Ducati maintained that same position for both races.
The first race was re-started over 25 laps and Rutter said;
“I rode the hardest I could but was losing out in the second gear corners. We’re limited to how we can gear the Ducati, which isn’t usually an issue, but causes us a lot of problems circuit. We can run the more suitable gearing but then we compromise the ideal wheelbase length of the bike and once you do that it upsets the entire set-up of the machine.”
In the second race it was much of the same;
“We weren’t a million miles off the first three either. We struggled with low down grunt because of the gearing we were forced to run. In first gear corners, I was having to use second so we weren’t getting off the turns like the others. But we’ll keep plugging away to finish in the top six after the ninth round which will put us into the top six run-off for the title in the final three rounds.”
The final outcome was soured somewhat by the incident involving Jessopp and Rutter said;
“It’s a such a shame what’s happened to Martin. It brings the whole team down. Of course it’s a good result this weekend for me and the team to have two fourth place finishes but I want Martin to be up there too.”
Rutter is now fifth in the championship on 114 points, only 40 adrift of series leader Tommy Hill.
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