McAdoo Kawasaki Racing’s Conor Cummins may not have finished the first race of TT week, the Poker Stars Superbike race, but he most certainly was the star of the show.

Conrod was absolutely flying on the McAdoo ZX-10R Kawasaki Superbike, breaking lap records and blowing the competition into the weeds.

From a standing start, Conor smashed the lap record at a lap speed of 131.511mph, the fastest standing start lap in TT history to lead Ian Hutchinson by 8 seconds. Lap two was another 131.311mph lap (including slowing down to pit for the first time), pulling further away from the field to lead by 15 seconds. The Manxman was timed from Ramsey to Ramsey at over 132mph – a ferocious pace which no-one could match. After four laps, Conrod had set the four fastest laps each circuit and therefore extending his lead each time he crossed the line to accumulate a lead of 23 seconds and in all fairness, have the race sewn up.

Unfortunately, the TT circuit is a cruel place and the clutch on the McAdoo ZX-10R Superbike began to fail towards the end of lap three and this became evident after the second pitstop, when Conrod stalled leaving the pits. This was the sign of imminent problems when he retired on lap five at Laurel Bank. A devastating afternoon for Conrod and the McAdoo Kawasaki team – a certain victory snatched away but racing is like this. Looking at the positives, no-one could match Conor’s pace – eventual race winner Ian Hutchinson was slower than Conor on all four laps he completed and neither Hutchy nor anyone else recorded a 131+mph lap – Conrod recorded two in a row. Perhaps it didn’t seem like it at the time, but longer term it’s better to blow the competition away and not finish with a mechanical failure than for everything to go perfectly and finish 8th through lack of race pace.

Hopefully Conrod will have better luck during the remaining four races, beginning with Monday’s Supersport race one and Superstock race. TV coverage continues nightly on ITV4 (Sky channel 120) at 9pm