John McGuinness was denied a top four finish at the latest round of the World Endurance Championship when a spill in the final hour brought his race to a premature end, fortunately without injury. Competing in the 8-Hour race at Albacete, Spain, John and Honda TT Legends team-mate Steve Plater had enjoyed a strong weekend of competition and were lying in fourth place when the crash occurred with just 50 minutes remaining and the bike was too damaged for him to continue. Up until then, everything had been going to plan and with dry, sunny conditions, first qualifying saw Plater set the pace for the majority of the session before ending up 2nd quickest and when it was John's turn, he was able to record consistent lap times before a small spill brought his session to an end, fortunately without injury. The third member of the team, Keith Amor, although not racing, practiced also and the combined average time of 1m32.654s was good enough for a fine 5th place. Remaining in fifth after second qualifying, hopes were high going into the race and, sure enough, their good form continued. By mid-race distance, they were up into fourth place with both riders lapping consistently but in John's final stint, it literally went wrong in the closing seconds and, just before he pulled into the pits to hand over to Plater for the final time, he slid out of the action. With the bike too damaged to get it back to the pits for repairs, he reluctantly had to retire from the race, a cruel end to what had been an excellent weekend. Speaking later, John commented: "In the first practice session, Steve and I were on a similar sort of pace and the development we'd done on the bike at the Bol d'Or was really paying dividends. Steve did a great lap time but when I had my qualifying tyre on, I made a small mistake and went down. It was the first time I'd been off in over a year so it felt a bit strange and luckily there was no damage to the bike. It was good to be competitive and fifth overall was a good start. It took me a while to get my confidence back though so I just eased my way back into Saturday's session and once I got a clear track, I put in some hard laps. The bike was working well and to do a low 32s lap was pleasing so with Steve's excellent pace we were in good shape going into the race." "Come the race itself, Steve and I were able to lap consistently to maintain a strong leaderboard position and that makes it all the more disappointing with it ending how it did. We had a good weekend and things were looking good in the race with us holding onto a strong fourth place but just before I handed over to Steve for the final stint, I lost the rear and down I went. I can't remember the last time I crashed twice at a meeting and it's obviously a real shame as the points would have placed us in a handy position in the Championship but it wasn't meant to be. On the plus side, we had good pace all weekend and were very competitive making strides forward as a team and with the bike. We'll use what we have learned for the next round at Suzuka and now I'm looking forward to the TT. It's a huge event for me, obviously, and I'll be giving it 100% to get myself, the bike and the team on the top step of the podium so fingers crossed we'll get our rewards on the Island." John now heads to the Isle of Man TT Races where he's hoping to add to his already impressive tally of 15 wins. First practice gets underway on Monday May 30th. ENDS