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McGuinness aims to end 2012 Isle of Man TT on a high note

Thursday 07 June 2012
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John McGuinness in the second Monster Energy Supersport race at the 2012 Isle of Man TT fuelled by Monster Energy

John McGuinness is intent on ending the 2012 Isle of Man TT fuelled by Monster Energy on a high note.

It has already been a successful TT for McGuinness, picking up win number 18 in Saturday’s Dainese Superbike and win 20 in Monday’s Royal London 360 Superstock race.

He will be aiming for his 20th TT win in the PokerStars Senior, scheduled for Friday.

McGuinness enjoyed another good day on Wednesday when he added 2nd and 5th place finishes to his already impressive haul of results.

The Morecambe Missile finished runner-up and broke the 100mph barrier in the SES TT Zero race, for electric bikes, and then finished 5th on the Padgetts Honda in the second 4-lap Monster Energy Supersport race.

McGuinness made his debut in the SES TT Zero, riding the Mugen Shinden machine for Team Mugen, and having lapped at over 96mph in the bike's first ever lap of the Mountain course in practice, hopes were high of challenging Michael Rutter for the race win.

In the end, the experience of Rutter's MotoCzysz team proved too much, but while Rutter won the race, and became the first man to break the 100mph barrier with a lap of 104.056mph, McGuinness was only 23.52s behind at the chequered flag having lapped at an impressive 102.215mph.

McGuinness was on the Padgetts Honda CBR600RR for the Supersport race, and a solid first lap of 122.817mph put him 4th, just a couple of seconds behind teammate Bruce Anstey.

Like Monday, positions were close and as the race wore on, McGuinness found himself in a battle with Anstey and Ryan Farquhar for the final podium spot. Still in 4th at half distance, McGuinness was pushed back to 5th on lap three and, despite posting his best lap of the race - 124.883mph - on the fourth and final lap, he had to settle for 5th, 10 seconds behind 3rd placed Farquhar.

McGuinness said:

“The TT Zero race was certainly something different for me and to break the 100mph barrier at out first attempt was really special. The guys at Mugen have built a really good bike, they've come here and completed two laps so there'll have gathered plenty of data now and will certainly come back stronger next year.”

“There's plenty more to come from the bike and I was only using 50% of the energy available as the main priority was to finish the race. When I got to the Bungalow, I was able to increase it to 60% and I was whizzing along so perhaps if I'd have pushed the button a little bit sooner maybe we would have been closer.”

“Ever since I first rode the bike at Motegi, I've enjoyed every lap I've done on it so it's nice to get a podium and split the Motoczysz bikes - I'm sure we'll come back next year and have another good go.”

He added:

“In the Supersport race, I just wasn't fast enough on the day. Conditions were good apart from a couple of damp patches in the usual spots, but it's not always beneficial being number one on the road as you don't have anyone to gauge yourself against so it can be difficult sometimes to know what pace to go at.”

“I rode as fast as I could, but it proved that I was a bit too steady in the early laps and that gave the others a bit of a jump on me. When Cameron (Donald) and Ryan came by, I jumped onto the back of them and was able to run at their pace. I tried my best as always and 5th was where I ended up, but that's another three rides on the Padgetts machines and another three finishes so a big thanks to them, they always give me a really competitive machine and I've been able to give them another TT win and more top five results this week.”

“I'm looking forward to the final race of the week now where I'll be looking to end the week on a high note.”

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