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Rico Penzkofer gained a 17th spot at the 46th Motorcycle Grand Prix of Macau and decided to end his racing career after that race. The German raced the brand new BMW HP4 on the to Sunday postponed 10 lap race safely to the finish. Penzkofer now will concentrate on his tasks as team manager in the FIM World Endurance Championship and in several Road Racings. His team mates Matsushita Yoshinari from Japan and Joao Fernandes from Macau gained 21st and 23rd spots respectively.

It’s been a quite chaotic year with the 46th Macau Motorcycle Grand Prix 2012. After numerous crashes during the first free practice sessions on Thursday morning and the fatal crash of Luis Carreira during the qualifying at the same day, race direction decided to bring in a additional free practice on Friday morning. The qualifying took place Friday evening but had to be red flagged due to darkness around the circuit of Macau.

The 15-lap race was set to be held at Saturday evening but already in grid there were light spots of rain. After just a half lap of racing the decision was right to red flag this one again. The race was postponed to Sunday.

Sunday saw racing going ahead shortly before 17 o’clock local time, shortened to 10 laps only. Penzkofer, Yoshinari and Fernandes took the over 6 kilometer long Guia Circuit under their tires and pressured their BMWs to the maximum. At the end all three saw the finish line alive and well.

The moment, when Penzkofer returned to the pits, was a very emotional one. “I wanted to secure this 17th spot”, he said. “After all I rode races for 17 years”, the Böhlen rider already took it with a sense of humor.

Victory went to Britains Michael Rutter for the 8th time. Martin Jessopp became second in front of Simon Andrews on BMW. It’s been the first podium for the BMW S 1000 RR at the Macau Motorcycle Grand Prix. Best german-speaking rider got Horst Saiger from Austria, taking a well fifth.

Rico Penzkofer

“I had a real good start, but did a little mistake in the Lisboa-bend. That’s why I dropped from 11th to 17th in the order again. But anyways – I saw the chequered flag at my farewell here in Macau and this is something to take with me. It was a pleasure to give the BMW HP4 it’s race debut here and to ride it around Macau. The era of the HP4 is just beginning, the one of Penz as a rider ends here.”

Matsushita Yoshinari

“I didn’t come with any expectations to my debut here at the Macau Grand Prix, but enjoyed this experience very much. I was able to finish the race even though the weekend started badly with a crash on Thursday morning. I want to thank the whole team of Rico Penzkofer for their faith in me and for their work. It was much fun, I’ll be back!”

Joao Fernandes

“My one and only goal was to start the race and to finish it. This I managed. The BMW S 1000 RR is a really awesome bike but I would have needed more laps on it as the practice sessions where all shortened. I didn’t have enough time to get used to the bike. The Penz13.com BMW Racing Team is a very professional squad and if I continue racing I would be happy to do it with this team.”

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