Davey Todd wins 2024 Macau Grand Prix from pole position… sort of

Davey Todd has been declared the winner of the 2024 Macau Grand Prix despite not starting the annual end-of-season road racing event.

The Isle of Man TT race winner, who was making his much anticipated first appearance with the FHO Racing team with which he will contest the 2025 British Superbike Championship, scored pole position aboard the BMW M 1000 RR on Saturday.

It would turn out to be all he’d need to secure victory after officials were forced to cancel the race due to poor weather conditions making the notorious high-speed, barrier-lined circuit too treacherous.

Prompting organisers to declare the results according to where the riders stacked up in qualifying, it meant Todd was declared a winner of the Macau Grand Prix for the first time.

Despite the unconventional outcome, Todd’s ‘victory’ still ranks as a prestigious one, the unusual street circuit event having established one of the most coveted trophies of the road racing calendar.

If for nothing else, Todd’s run to pole position saw him pick off some impressive scalps along the way, not least new team-mate Peter Hickman, the Louth rider having won the event on four previous occasions.

This time he’d have to make do with third place behind Todd and 2022 Macau Grand Prix winner Ermo Kostamo, while Michael Rutter - who scored the first of his record nine wins on the semi-autonomous Sino-Portuguese state way back in 1998 - was classified fourth aboard a third FHO Racing entry.