After months of preparation, John McGuinness got his 2011 FIM World Endurance Championship campaign underway at the weekend when he finished in an excellent 5th place in the Bol d’Or 24 Hour race. Held at Magny Cours, France, John was riding as part of the Honda TT Legends team alongside Steve Plater and Keith Amor and it was a more than encouraging start for the newly formed team.
The opening qualifying session on Thursday saw good conditions with the three riders taking to the track separately for 30 minutes each. As expected, Plater was the quickest of the trio but, crucially, both John and Keith were within a second of his time and, when the times were averaged, they were in a provisional 8th place on the grid. Friday saw similar conditions and whilst Plater went quicker again, John was able to consolidate his lap times and they were able to move up one slot with an average lap time of 1m42.879s to end qualifying as the seventh fastest team.
The 24-Hour race got underway at 3pm on Saturday afternoon and it was Morecambe man McGuinness that had the honour of starting the race and 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 up into a superb 6th place and although they were pushed back to 7th 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 4 other teams, John, Steve and Keith were stringing together some strong lap times during their individual stints and their hard work and effort saw them rewarded in the early morning.
The private French Honda team National Motos, who the Honda TT Legends were close to, dropped back a couple of laps with brake trouble and there was more drama when the Yamaha Endurance Racing Team retired from 3rd place. This all happened within less than half an hour and the outcome was that the Honda TT Legends were elevated to fifth place. 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.
Speaking afterwards, a pleased John 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 ten 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.”
The meetings come thick and fast for John now with the opening round of the National Superstock 1000cc Championship getting underway this Easter weekend at Brands Hatch, Kent.
Ends
Monday 18th, April 2011 10:09pm.
