Nutt pleased with eighth at Silverstone

The Castlerock rider overcame difficult, wet conditions to record his second best result of the season and move up to 13th overall in the Championship table.

Immediately gelling with the Grand Prix circuit, a steady first free practice session saw Marty take 13th place but in the dryer conditions in the afternoon, he showed his form was as good as ever with an excellent fifth place.

The first qualifying session was again damp but Marty took a more than encouraging 9th place and was hopeful of getting on to the second row in the final qualifying session.

However, although he improved his time by four-tenths of a second, he slipped back to 14th and the fourth row as he ran off the track in the closing stages when on a particularly fast lap. Nevertheless, Marty was in confident mood going in to the race and more than hopeful of finishing inside the top ten once more.

Conditions were, arguably, at their worst when the Supersport machines came to the line on Sunday afternoon and Marty was one of many riders to run off the track on the opening lap due to the heavy rain and spray but the red flag was soon out due to a first corner pile-up which left TT hero Ian Hutchinson with a fractured leg.

Eventually re-started over eight laps, a great getaway saw Marty up to 11th on the first lap and this soon became 10th as he overtook Graeme Gowland.

Lap three was even better as he moved past Billy McConnell, Dean Hipwell and Lee Johnston to climb up to seventh although by this time sixth placed Glen Richards was over five seconds clear.

He was also being rapidly caught by Alex Lowes at the rate of two seconds a lap but on lap 6, Marty responded and was able to keep his rival more than a second behind him.

On the penultimate lap, Marty had to give best to his fellow Yamaha rider though but he was comfortably clear of ninth place and so he crossed the line at the end of the eight laps in eighth.

Speaking later, a pleased Marty said: "I'm happy enough with today's result and I actually felt quite comfortable out there in the wet although the visibility was quite poor and I was struggling to see for a fair bit of the race.

“I had a bit of luck with the race being red flagged as I got tangled up with Hutchy's bike when he crashed and was lucky not to go down myself whilst I also ran on at one of the chicanes. If I'd have qualified a bit better, maybe I could have been higher up but I made a mistake on my last quick lap and ran off the track so I was slightly disappointed with 14th on the grid but today's result more than makes up for it."

I've got to say a big thank you to my mechanic Andy as he did an awesome job throughout the three days and he had the correct settings dialled in for each session without me even having to say anything.

“I'm only two points off 11th place in the Championship now so I'll be looking to continue this form over to the final round and do all I can to claim that position."

Marty now has a two week break before the final round of the series takes place at Oulton Park, the meeting being held on the weekend of October 7-9.