Press release: Hydrex Honda’s Guy Martin had another brilliant day of racing at the Isle of Man TT Races when he took two hard-fought second places in Tuesday’s Supersport and Superstock races. For a while it looked like the latter would give him, and the team, their first ever TT win in what was truly a superb race, but he had to give second best to Ian Hutchinson, his fellow Honda rider also pipping him to first spot in the earlier Supersport race. In each race he was also comfortably inside the old class lap records.
Despite only putting in a handful of laps on the 600cc Supersport bike during practice week, Guy was on the pace immediately and, having been in second at Glen Helen, 9 miles in to the course, he took over the lead of the race at the end of the opening lap with a speed of 125.375mph. Half way round the second lap he was overhauled by both Bruce Anstey and Ian Hutchinson, the former reclaiming his lap record, but it later transpired that Guy had to contend with water being thrown out by the machine. Nevertheless, he never slackened his pace and with a final lap of 125.729mph, he secured second place only 6.81seconds behind fellow Honda rider Hutchinson.
With the Superstock race held much later in the day, at 6.30pm, conditions were a lot cooler and an opening lap of 128.247mph saw Guy slot in to fourth. The race was just warming up and for the next two laps, there was very little to choose between Guy and Hutchinson, the advantages minimal. When Hutchinson had problems at the pit stop Guy took a 3-second lead but Hutchinson was charging, the gap down to just 0.05seconds as they started their final lap. He then smashed the lap record with a near 130mph lap and Guy had to settle for second once more, his third podium of the week and his 8th at the TT in total 8.77 seconds adrift on this occasion.
Talking later,
Guy said:
“I’m totally over the moon with today’s runner-up spots and I couldn’t have ridden any harder. Fair play to Hutchy, particularly in the Superstock race, he just rode that little bit better than me on the day. We had a few problems in the Supersport race when the bike started throwing water at me and I didn’t think we’d make it to the end but the performance of the bike didn’t tail off at all and I set my best lap on the final lap so I was well chuffed with second.”
“It was a similar story in the Superstock race but, for some reason, I was a bit slow on the first run to Glen Helen and gave myself a bit of work to do. I pushed as hard as I could and managed to get in to the lead but my pit boards were constantly saying ‘+0’ and although I caught a few backmarkers in some awkward places on the last lap, Hutchy had the same so no excuses. I’m enjoying the week though and feel like I’m riding well so will continue to keep chipping away.”
Team boss
Shaun Muir:
“The Superstock race was simply sensational and we’ve got no arguments with the result, Guy just lost out to the better man on the day – some days you just have to hold your hands up to that. We thought we had a major problem with the Supersport bike but it’s turned out to be just a radiator cap so we’ll be well in the hunt again tomorrow. Guy’s taken two more podiums and has broken both of the class lap records so we can’t complain too much and certainly can’t criticise anything. The approach and endeavour has been first class and with 3 podiums from 3 races, I’ve never seen Guy’s confidence so high so let’s hope that he gets to stand on the top step of the box in one of the final two races.”
Guy’s next outing will be tomorrow morning with the second 4-lap Supersport race due to start at 10.45am.
