McGuinness settles for fifth in TT Superstock race

Morecambe’s John McGuinness had to settle for fifth place in today’s four-lap Superstock TT race, the HM Plant Honda rider powerless to do anything about the exhilarating battle going on at the head of the field between Bruce Anstey and Ian Hutchinson.

Riding the same CBR1000RR Honda FireBlade that he campaigns in the British Superstock Championship, John had, for him, a sluggish opening lap and he was never able to claw back the time, ending up over a minute behind eventual winner Anstey.

After being delayed for an hour, the race got underway at 11:45am, but it was clear it wasn’t going to be a repeat performance of Saturday’s Superbike race - as early as the opening lap and as the times came through from Glen Helen, John was back in sixth place, 5.6 seconds adrift of the pace setting Anstey. At Ramsey, fifteen miles further on, John had been relegated even further to eighth, but he charged over the Mountain and an opening lap of 123.41mph hauled him back up the order to fifth. However, he was almost ten seconds behind fourth place, and any chance of victory had certainly gone as he was now some 20 seconds behind Anstey.

With weather conditions again perfect on the Isle of Man, even hotter than Saturday, John battled hard but try as he might there was no way back and, although he increased his speed on lap two to 124.55mph, the leading four riders did similar and the gaps grew bigger. He had now been caught on the road by Anstey and John had to, reluctantly, watch him disappear into the distance as the flying Kiwi sought to hold off the close attentions of Ian Hutchinson. John was now fifteen seconds adrift of fourth placed rider Guy Martin, but he was comfortable in fifth with fellow Honda rider Ian Lougher some way behind in sixth. Having refuelled at the end of the second lap, John’s final laps of 118.45mph and 122.18mph saw him bring the Honda home in a solid fifth place, 20 seconds behind Martin but over 30 seconds clear of Lougher. Anstey took the win from Hutchinson and Jason Griffiths.

Although not happy with the result, fifth was another excellent TT performance by John and after the race he said:
“I couldn’t do any more than what I did today, and I rode the best that I could. I had a couple of frights over a couple of the jumps on the first lap, and it upset my rhythm a bit, which meant I had a bit of a lazy first lap. Once I’d lost that time there was no clawing it back and when Bruce came by I had to watch him go. There was no way I could match the pace of Bruce or Hutchy, as I was on the absolute limit on the bike I was riding. The Honda worked brilliantly, but we just couldn’t live with some of the other boys today, and we were simply beaten by better riders and machines on the day. It’s a little bit disappointing as it’s my regular British Championship machine, but we dug deep, got another result, and were the first Honda home - so it’s not too bad. I’ll have a bit of a breather on Tuesday before getting ready for the Supersport race, which I’m really looking forward to - hopefully, we’ll be back on the podium in that one.”

The Junior Supersport TT race takes place at 10:45am on Wednesday.