PBM Kawasaki’s Stuart Easton monstered the competition in this morning’s Macau Grand Prix, taking the chequered flag by a huge 14 second margin after rolling off the throttle on the start/finish straight.
The Hawick man was never headed after the lights went out and was, at times, two seconds a lap faster than Milwaukee Yamaha’s Michael Rutter in second place and Martin Jessopp on the Riders BMW in third.
Easton didn’t trouble his own lap record but didn’t need to as he kept out of danger on the opening circuit while Rutter, who looked set to be his major competition, got a bad start and found himself in third behind Pirtek Honda’s Lee Johnston for the first three laps.
It was a disaster for Easton’s team-mate Ian Hutchinson who ran straight on at the right-right hander of Lisboa on lap one, effectively putting himself out of the race, and the falling again a lap later.
Easton pulled a gap of a second on the opening lap which was extended to 3.5s on lap three as Rutter passed Johnston for second place and tried to head off after Easton.
It appeared something wasn’t quite right with the YZF-R1 and he couldn’t match his times set in free practice with his fastest of 2’28.882 set on the last lap which was almost two seconds slower than his qualifying pace.
As Rutter and Johnston scrapped for second place, Quattro Kawasaki’s Gary Johnson and Jessopp started to close in with the BMW man going into fourth place with six laps to go as Johnston passed Rutter for second.
Johnston’s tyre then gave up and he was shuffled down to fifth in fairly short order as Jessopp got on to the back wheel of Rutter, passing him for second through the penultimate corner but the 42-year-old Midlander was back past on the brakes into Lisbao.
Jessopp put the same move on Rutter again a lap later but Rutter was better on the brakes and he held second place right to the line with Johnson coming in third and Johnston fourth.
Austrian Horst Saiger was a further two seconds further back while John McGuinness had a lonely race for seventh. Dan Cooper took eighth with Roman Stamm ninth and Stephen Thompson completing the top ten.
