By Penz 13 BMW enjoyed a dream first race outing at Imatra, as Imatranajo newcomers Michael Rutter, Dan Kneen and Alex Polita provided the popular outfit with a memorable 1-2-3 finish, in the opening IRRC Superbike encounter.
Just 0.749 separated the high profile trio, as Lightweight TT winner Rutter sealed a third roads victory of 2017 edging out Manxman Kneen by under 0.3 of a second.
Fittingly today is Penz 13 BMW Team Owner, Rico Penzkofer’s birthday. Today’s result has to rank high amongst his teams most prodigious roads moments to date.
Photo via Michael Rutter – Twitter Page
Outside of the flying tricolore liveried machines, Erno Kostamo, Marek Cerveny and Pauli Pekkanen where all closely matched in finishing fourth, fifth and sixth.
Juha Kallio was seventh, whilst Didier Grams finished eighth in front of Sebastien Le Grelle, who dropped back to ninth having received a time penalty due to a jump start.
Finalising the top ten within the six lap re started race, was Estonia’s Martin Partelpoig.
Photo by Michael Rutter
Imatranajo: IRRC Superbike Race 1 Results:
1 Michael Rutter
2 Dan Kneen
3 Alex Polita
4 Erno Kostamo
5 Marek Cerveny
6 Pauli Pekkanen
7 Juha Kallio
8 Didier Grams
9 Sebastien Le Grelle
10 Martin Partelpoig
11 Lukas Maurer
12 Toni Torpakko
13 David Datzer
14 Kamil Holan
15 Jani Ratto
16 Marko Ratto
17 Magnus Collin
18 Petr Biciste
19 Johan Fredriks
20 Vladimir Strelnik
21 John Pilloud
22 Ales Nechvatal
23 Timo Schonhals
24 Herve Somson
25 Ludovic Paureau
26 Nadieh Schoots
27 Lasse Karki
28 Hanno Brandenburger
29 Josef Luksik
30 Joni Leino
31 Jean Pierre Polet
32 Dirk Kaletsch
Words by Stevie Rial
