Stunning Macau debut for Andrews

MSS Colchester Kawasaki British Superbike rider Simon Andrews made a fantastic debut appearance at the Macau GP, as he stormed from 12^th to 7^th through a field of established runners on his Team of Paris AXA Racing Kawasaki.

Andrews only saw the daunting street circuit for the first time on Thursday and found himself a massive ten seconds a lap off the pace, before making impressive progress in every session, culminating in good race speeds. Andrews said, “When I first saw the place my eyes nearly popped out of my head, I was genuinely worried! It all came good in the race and I feel happy with my newcomer performance although it would have been good to have held off Michael!”

His team-mate, six-time Macau winner, Michael Rutter, didn’t have the best of races with an intermittent electrical fault and battled with Andrews all race to take an eventual sixth place.

After 15 laps of the Macau Guia Circuit, 2008 winner Stuart Easton edged out the impressive Manxman Connor Cummins for the win. Overall it was a great event for Kawasaki with four Ninja ZX-10R machines in the top seven finishers.

The final Superbike member of the Team of Paris-AXA Racing squad was Frenchman Gerald Muteau, finishing a creditable 11^th, in a field rich in International talent and lapping two seconds quicker in the race over practice. The team’s 600cc runner, Amaury Baratin finished as the Supersport class winner.

The MSS Colchester Kawasaki squad now return to the UK to continue their extensive development plans for 2010 and intend to announce their rider line-up very soon.

MSS Colchester Kawasaki Team Owner, Nick Morgan said : ‘Obviously we’d have liked to have seen Michael take that record breaking seventh win but it wasn’t to be his year. Mega ride from Simon. He has really impressed everyone the way he has just got better and better, he will be a force for the future around this unique circuit. Our thanks to Team of Paris AXA and AXA Asia Pacific Holdings for putting together such a great team.”