Sunday, 4 October, LIUZHOU (China): Jean-Baptiste Botti produced an outstanding virtuoso performance to win heat 1 of Runabout and claim his third victory of the season.

The rider from Porto Vecchio, Corsica, showed a clean pair of heels to his rivals and was in a class of his own from start-to-finish, running out the 16 laps to the chequered flag unchallenged to win by 10.92s.

The only moment of excitement for the 28-year-old was at the start of lap nine when his ignition key came out killing his engine.  Such was his lead he was able to glance round and nonchalantly check where the pack was, restart and resume his solo race.

Kuwait’s Youssef Al Abdulrazzaq simply had no answer to his [Botti] pace and was an equally solitary figure out on the circuit and finishing in second.

Qatar GP winner Thamer Al Darwish looked to be heading for third place but started to go backwards and on lap 12 of 16 was passed by Jeremy Perez and a lap later by countryman Mohamed Al Heidus.

Sweden’s Lars Akerblom’s return to form continues taking his first top-six finish of the year and followed home by Poland’s Andrzej Wisniewski, his best result of the year and making up for the disqualification of his Black Shadows teammate Marcin Senda for missing a demarcation buoy, Sweden’s Johan Johanson suffering the same fate.

[ to see full classification click on ‘live timing and results’ ]