Joy and despair for Cummins at Macau Manxman Conor Cummins experienced both the highs and lows of motorcycling at the weekend when he competed at the Macau Grand Prix. The 22-year old qualified his Team of Paris AIM Racing Yamaha in a brilliant pole position in just his second ever appearance around the 3.8-mile Guia circuit, recording the fastest ever qualifying lap for the race but all hopes of a dream win were dashed on the 8th lap when a machine problem forced him to retire whilst holding on to a strong third. Conditions were perfect throughout the three days of action and Conor got his week underway with a fine 3rd in the opening free practice session on Thursday morning. In the first qualifying session later that afternoon, he slipped back to 7th, mainly due to feeling unwell, but he was back to his best in the final 1-hour qualifying session on Friday morning. With a fantastic time of 2m26.580s, Conor sliced over four seconds off his best time from the previous day to set a blistering record qualifying lap and leave him amlost half a second clear of his nearest rival, Michael Rutter. With the race getting underway at 3.15pm on Saturday, the riders had to contend with searing heat and Conor failed to take advantage of his pole position, a poor start leaving him down in 6th at the end of the opening lap. However, he was soon into his stride and on the next lap he despatched of both Ian Hutchinson and John McGuinness, immediately pulling away and setting about closing the gap to the riders in front of him. When race leader Cameron Donald went out at the start of the 5th lap, he was promoted to 3rd and had the race leaders, Stuart Easton and Muchael Rutter, firmly in his sights. With less than 5 seconds separating the trio, Conor was well placed for a podium position at least but it all came to an end at half race distance when a loss of power, caused by a broken rectifier, left him with little option other than to retire. Speaking after the race, Conor said: “I was really chuffed with pole and couldn’t quite believe it to be honest! The first two sectors of the lap were great but I made a couple of mistakes on the fast right handers before the start and thought I’d wrecked the lap so it was a bit of a surpise to get the pole. It was the first time I’ve ever used a qualifying tyre so it was all a bit new but our race pace was also very good and I felt really strong going in to the race. “I was really disappointed with the start I made but I got up 4th fairly quicky and with Cameron going out I was soon up to third. Easton and Rutter were only just ahead of me and I felt very comfortable and was confident of pulling them in but the bike suddenly felt like it had gone on to 3 cylinders and I had to pull in. The bike was flying up until then so it’s a real shame but it’s been a great experience and even better to have got pole in just my second time here. I’ve proved I have the speed to run at the front on the roads and I can’t grumble too much – well, I can!”