Milwaukee Yamaha's Ian Hutchison has stormed to victory in today's 47th Macau Grand Prix after taking the lead from Michael Rutter on lap five and building a two-second gap before the race was stopped with two laps left on the board.
Hutchinson, who has not raced for 18 months, had taken pole by just 0.057s from SMT's Rutter yesterday and it set up a titanic clash with Quattro Kawasaki's Gary Johnson and TT Legend John McGuinness also in the mix.
The Morecambe man was into Mandarin Bend first but by the time they reached Lisboa, Johnson was in the lead with Rutter second and Hutchinson third. It took Rutter just one more lap to pass Johnson at Melco while Hutchinson was also past on the same lap at R-Bend. It was then down to the Bingley Bullet to hunt down Rutter, which he did, passing the 40-something rider on lap five at R-Bend as Johnson faded away.
Hutchinson then set about pulling a gap of 1.8s on lap six which increased to 2.3 a lap later. Rutter rallied on lap eight, putting in a 2'25.825 to bring the gap back down to 2.1s and then a 2'25.763 saw it reduced to 1.8s.
Hutchinson was having none of it, however, and put in a 1'25.760 of his own to pull the gap back to 2.4s. Backmarkers came into play on lap 12 which Hutchinson encountered on a faster part of the circuit and by the time Rutter got through, he was seven seconds behind and it was game over.
A crash by Dean Harrison, who was unhurt, saw his RC Express Kawasaki laying in the middle of the track and the red flags came out. Johnson retained the final podium spot with McGuinness fourth and Jimmy Storrar fifth.
Martin Jessopp put a late move on Jeremy Toye for sixth, with Didier Grams, Lee Johnston and Stephen Thompson rounding out the top ten. But results were taken from the lap before the red flag so the final placings put Toye in sixth place.
