ISILON MSS Discovery Kawasaki bounced back from a tough qualifying to take more top ten places at Silverstone in the Bennetts British Superbike championship today. In race one Michael Rutter got his head down and put in some consistent laps to scoop tenth position. For the second race, a change to his fuel load was made in a bid to improve the handling of his Ninja ZX-10R in the early laps. Unfortunately, the race was cut-short after just 13 laps as he was battling for eighth place. In the MAXXIS British Supersport race, former champion Stuart Easton blasted through the pack from 24th on the grid into the top ten, dropping to ninth at the flag, despite still feeling the after-effects of his heavy fall in warm-up yesterday.
Michael Rutter, Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R (10& 9 positions)“I just tried to keep it consistent in race one, but I couldn’t live with the fast guys, our bike feels so much better as the fuel load comes down, it really is that critical. We took a bit of a gamble in race two by lowering the fuel load and that seemed to work a bit, but when in seventh I was pushed wide by Tommy Hill which pushed me down to tenth. I made a couple of places up and could have possibly re-taken Tommy for eighth, but the red-flag put a stop to that. It’s a shame, but that’s how things go.”
Stuart Easton, Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R (9 position)“That first lap was pretty hairy going from 24th to 12th. I was worried that I passed someone when the Pace Car was out, as I couldn’t see any flags. I let the guy back through and luckily I wasn’t penalised. I had to take my chances when I got them and was up to seventh at one point. On the last lap the engine started running a little rough and I lost almost three seconds on that lap to Martin Jessopp and he passed me for eighth. The bike finally stopped as we went over the line. Considering our position yesterday, this is a bit of a result.”
Nick Morgan, Team owner “It was good to see Stuart salvage something from the weekend with a solid ride. He showed he had the pace during the race. We’ve identified that we need to be closer to the pace-setters earlier on in the weekend, so we’re going to try a few things with Stuart to help with that. With Michael the results we have are about the level we can expect from the bike at this stage of development and in only our third Superbike race. To be about three-tenths off championship leader Greg Lavilla in practice was encouraging.”
Stuart Simmonds, joint team owner “Stuart did well in the race to get some points starting from so deep on the grid. We’ve dropped to fifth in the series, but at least we’re closer to second! We now need to be challenging for podiums to move closer to the leaders. Michael did another solid job for us today, with a little more development we hope to be closer to the top five. That’s our aim.”
Bennetts British Superbike Championship: Race 1 1. Ryuichi Kiyonari
2. Jonathan Rea
3. Chris Walker
4. Leon Camier
5. Gregorio Lavilla
10: Michael Rutter, ISILON MSS Discovery Kawasaki
Best lap: 1m 27.154s
Bennetts British Superbike Championship: Race 2:1. Ryuichi Kiyonari
2. Gregorio Lavilla
3. Jonathan Rea
4. Chris Walker
5. Leon Haslam
9. Michael Rutter, ISILON MSS Discovery Kawasaki
Best lap: 1m 26.858s
MAXXIS British Supersport Championship race: 1. Dennis Hobbs
2. Ian Lowry
3. Michael Laverty
4. Ian Hutchinson
5. Tom Grant
9. Stuart Easton, ISILON MSS Discovery Kawasaki
Best lap: 1m 30.091s
Related Linkswww.mssdiscoveryracing.com
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