Solid finish, but frustration for Marty Nutt at Knockhill

MARTY Nutt took his second successive 13th place finish in round six of the British Supersport 600cc Championship at Knockhill on Sunday but the Nuttravel.com/Dawn/T&G Racing rider was left frustrated having run inside the top eight for the majority of the weekend.

The Castlerock man had been in ninth place in the early stages of the race but got pushed wide on to the slippery rumble strips on two occasions dropping him down the order so he left the Scottish venue wondering what might have been.

Free practice and qualifying went excellently for Marty and throughout the four sessions, not only did he reduce his lap times he also edged closer to the front.

Eleventh in the first free practice session was followed by eighth in the second and he improved further still in Saturday's first qualifying session, a time of 50.348s placing him in seventh.

He went quicker still in the second and final session although he did slip back one spot to eighth. However, his time of 50.131s meant he was only 0.545s adrift of pole position and he lined up on the second row of the grid for the 25-lap race.

Sunday's race was held in vastly different conditions though, heavy wind and rain making it treacherous for the 31-strong field although Marty was again riding strongly, placing eighth in the morning warm-up.

A solid start in the race saw him end the first lap in 9th place and here he remained until the fifth lap when the safety car came out due to an incident on the track.

When it pulled in at the end of 7th lap, Marty was well placed to move in to the top six but on two occasions he got bumped into by another rider and it dropped him all the way back to 14th. He managed to get back up to 13th and was still hopeful of climbing back in to the top ten but another crash caused the race to be stopped 2 laps early and he had to settle for the position.

A frustrated Marty that said: "I'd had a really good weekend up until the race and had felt strong in both the wet and dry conditions so I'm frustrated to have only finished in 13th as I felt I had the pace to finish in the top six.

“My mechanic Andy and I had worked hard all weekend on the set-up of the bike and had got it working really well and the times were coming quite comfortably so I was confident of going even better in the race.

“I got a decent start and was right with the front runners but the slight problem with the Yamaha is that it lacks a bit of grunt out of the corners and on a couple of occasions, I got pushed wide by a couple of riders and with it being so wet, I just had to wait until I was back on the tarmac before getting on the power again."

It's a real shame as, like I say, I felt really confident of getting in to the top six today but it wasn't meant to be. There are a lot of positives to take from the weekend though and I was riding really well so we'll all look forward to Snetterton now and look at carrying the form over to there."

The next round of the British Supersport Championship takes place at Snetterton, Norfolk over the weekend of July 16-18.

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