John McGuinness puts in two more strong rides as Isle of Man TT continues

The Morecambe Missile came home fifth and sixth in the four-lap Supersport and Superstock races after picking up his 45th podium in the opening Superbike race on Saturday.

Ian Hutchinson won both races, smashing the lap and race records in the afternoon’s Superstock race having earlier produced a race-record winning time to win the Supersport race.

McGuinness, a 23-time winner at the TT, said: “I’ve really enjoyed the races today and I felt that I rode really well, as well as I’ve ever done, so to take two top-six finishes in two of the toughest, most competitive races is pleasing.

“Neither the Jackson Racing Honda or EMC2/Bet Victor Honda missed a beat and the teams have done a great job with the bikes.”

Proceedings started with the morning’s Supersport race where McGuinness was riding the Jackson Racing Honda and a good opening lap of 125.194mph placed him in fifth place after the first 37 and ¾ miles.

Second time around, the 44-year-old quickened his speed to 125.973mph although such was the pace of the race, this dropped him back a place to sixth.

However, he maintained this position all the way to the chequered flag with the final lap seeing him set his best lap of the race at 126.329mph.

After the race had finished, runner-up Michael Dunlop was disqualified for a technical infringement and this promoted the Honda man up the order to fifth.

With little rest, the resort racer was soon back out on the Mountain Course for the four-lap Superstock race, this time riding his own bike, the EMC2/Bet Victor CBR1000RR Honda Fireblade.

With an opening lap of 129.280mph, the Missile found himself down in 10th place but this was only eight seconds adrift of fourth and for the remainder of the race, it was nip and tuck all the way between a group of riders.

A second lap of 130.228mph, McGuinness’ first 130mph lap on a Superstock machine, elevated him up the order to seventh and with a fantastic pit stop by his team, he was up to fourth when he swept through Glen Helen on the third lap.

He was still in fourth as he started his final lap but the time gaps between him, Gary Johnson and Michael Rutter were negligible and positions changed hands at each of the timing points around the course.

With Rutter and Johnson both lapping in excess of 130mph on their final lap, McGuinness had to settle for sixth place after 150.92 miles of racing where he was the first Honda machine to finish.

He said: “It’s been a good, solid day all round and to lap at 130.3mph on my stocker is especially pleasing as the BMWs and Kawasakis have considerably more horse power than what we do.

“I was only 10th after the first lap but I didn’t panic and I slowly but surely clawed my way up the leaderboard.

“I had a bit of a fuel issue on both the second and fourth laps though and on the last lap, the fuel light came on at Schoolhouse Corner, which is a long way from home!

“The last thing you want as a rider is to keep the revs down and nurse the bike home but that’s what I had to do on that last lap.”

McGuinness is back in action on Wednesday for the second Supersport race and also the electric TT Zero race where he’ll be riding the latest generation Mugen and looking for a hat-trick of wins.