Rutter heads Superpole at Thruxton

Michael Rutter went 1.5 seconds faster than his best qualifying time to claim pole position for the race at Thruxton on Sunday.

Rutter put his Renegade Ducati 0.362 seconds in front of Shane Byrne on the Monster Mob bike. Third on the grid went to a resurgent Steve Hislop, looking for a good result after a bad weekend at the previous round at Snetterton. Glen Richards also had a good qualifying, completing the front row 0.657 seconds down on pole.

The second row includes Gary Mason, John Reynolds, Steve Plater, and in seventh, ex-WSB rider Mark Heckles in his first BSB race on the Honda.

1) Michael Rutter 1:14.771s. 2) Shane Byrne 1:15.133s. 3) Steve Hislop 1:15.220s. 4) Glen Richards 1:15.428s. 5) Gary Mason 1:16.325s. 6) John Reynolds 1:16.396s. 7) Mark Heckles 1:16.528s. 8) Steve Plater 1:16.769s. 9) Lee Jackson 1:16.774s. 10) Dean Ellison 1:16.788s. 11) Scott Smart 1:16.888s. 12) Sean Emmett 1:17.063s.

Non-Superpole qualifiers:

13) John Crawford. 14) Jon Kirkham. 15) Yukio Kagayama. 16) Francis Williamson. 17) Paul Jones. 18) Mike Walker. 19) Nick Medd. 20) Neil Cray. DNQ: Paul Young.

British Supersport:

1) Stuart Easton. 2) Karl Harris. 3) Tom Sykes. 4) Simon Andrews. 5) Adrian Coates. 6) Kieran Murphy. 7) John Crockford. 8) Mark Burr. 9) Leon Haslam. 10) Shane Norval. 11) Jim Moodie. 12) Jamie Robinson. 13) Michael Laverty. 14) John McGuinness. 15) Danny Beaumont. 16) Rob Frost. 17) Tom Tunstall. 18) Callum Ramsay. 19) Craig Jones. 20) Craig Sproston.

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