Honda's TT legends take fifth on World Endurance debut
The Honda TT Legends World Endurance Championship team finished a fighting fifth in the opening round of the 2011 campaign.
The weekend’s Bol D’Or 24 Hour race at France’s Magny Cours circuit was the first competitive outing for the new team, which features a rider line-up of 15-times TT winner John McGuinness, fellow TT star Keith Amor and Steve Plater, who won the 2009 Senior TT before quitting racing on the roads.
Opening qualifying on Thursday saw each rider taking to the track separately for 30 minute sessions. As expected, Plater was the quickest of the trio but, crucially, both McGuinness and Amor were within a second of his time. When the times were averaged, they were placed in a provisional 8th place on the grid.
On Friday they moved up one slot with an average lap time of 1m 42.879s to end qualifying as the 7th fastest team.
The 24-hour race got underway at 3pm on Saturday and it was Morecambe man McGuinness that had the honour of starting the race. His steady, conservative first set of laps helped the team get into a good, early rhythm and maintain a strong position in the first few hours.
By the end of the second hour, the team were into sixth place and, although they were pushed back to seventh three hours into the race, the next portion of the race went without any dramas and they were able to maintain this position right up until the early hours of the morning.
Battling closely with four other teams, the Honda TT Legends riders were stringing together some strong lap times during their individual stints and their hard work and effort saw them rewarded in the early morning when the private French Honda team National Motos, which the Honda TT Legends were close to, dropped back a couple of laps with brake trouble.
There was more drama when the Yamaha Endurance Racing Team retired from third place.
This all happened within less than half an hour and the outcome was that the Honda TT Legends were elevated to fifth. There were still 7 hours of the race to negotiate though, almost a third race distance, but the three riders remained steady for the rest of the race, eventually finishing with a total of 796 laps to achieve their aim of finishing the 75th annual Bol d’Or.
McGuinness said:
“I was hoping to be a bit faster in qualifying, but we had a few little problems along the way and at the end of the day, we qualified well and at a reasonable pace.”
“We definitely learned a lot in preparation for the race and with the Le Mans-style start, it doesn’t matter so much if you’re fourth, fifth, sixth or seventh in this game, but it was nice to be in the top 10 that’s for sure.”
“Come the race, I wanted to set a good, consistent pace right from the start to try and set the tone and that’s what happened. It’s only the second time I’ve ever competed in a 24-Hour race so I’m pretty happy with fifth and to finish inside the top 5 at our very first attempt is absolutely brilliant.”
“It’s been like a war not a battle, incredible really, and it’s a testament to the Hondas and to the hard work of all the team, maintaining the bike through the race that we finished where we did.”
“The atmosphere here has been amazing, right through the day and through the night – what an event, what a festival and what an experience.”
“Like I say, it’s a really encouraging start for us and it bodes well for the rest of the season so we're all eagerly looking forward to the next round in May.”
Plater added:
“The whole team has put in a massive effort and worked really hard to get ready for the Bol d’Or. It’s a very hard, steep learning curve to do a 24-hour race first rather than a six or eight-hour.”
“All the guys have done a fantastic job so we’ve got a good base to progress from. We’ve got an awful lot to learn from this and hopefully we can come back from the next round at Albacete being even more competitive.”