British Superbike veteran Michael Rutter will be looking for a record eighth victory at this weekend's Macau Grand Prix but will have to battle John McGuinness, Martin Jessopp and Simon Andrews to do so.

The Midlander took a record breaking seventh win last year after holding six equal wins with Ron Haslam since 2005. After becoming somewhat of a specialist around the 6.2km Guia circuit he will be hoping to raise the bar this year on the SMT Honda.

"Macau is always a race I really look forward to throughout the year. I am really happy to be racing with the Jezac SMT Racing team, it's great to get back on a Honda and I hope I'll be able to achieve a good result for Robin and his team," said Rutter.

"It's good to have a team-mate like McGuinness, we get on really well and go back a long way so it will be good banter and I'm sure good racing. I'm happy to have the support again from my personal sponsors Bathams and R&B (TUFTAC) and to welcome Monster Energy and Datatag on board.

"You never know what will happen over there but I am really looking forward to getting back out there and getting a good result, the competition as always is strong and it won't be easy but I'm eager to get there now and get racing."

Get Thursday's issue of Bikesport News for our four-page Macau GP preview