John McGuinness’s plans to make his debut in the Supertwin class at this year’s Isle of Man TT races have been put on hold.

The 19-times TT winner had been due to ride a Honda CBR500R in the Lightweight race for Phil Morris Racing and RLR Motorsports in June.

However, the 41-year-old from Morecambe has been forced to pull out of the race - due to take place on the morning of Senior TT race day on Friday, June 7 - as the machine will not be fully prepared in time for the event.

McGuinness said he was disappointed with the outcome but expressed his thanks to Phil Morris and RLR Motorsport for their efforts.

“It’s a real shame for everyone involved, but if we do this race we want to do it and win and we just don’t have the time to prepare for that result this year.

“Both Phil Morris Racing and RLR Motorsport are respectable outfits and I want to thank them for all their hard work in getting to this stage,” said McGuinness.

Team owner Morris admitted that time had simply ran out to enable the successful completion of the project in time for the race.

“We entered into this project with the sole intention of preparing a race-winning bike and unfortunately time restraints mean that we are unable to meet that aim,” he said.

“We knew that we had a lot to do to get ready for June and unfortunately we have simply run out of time.

“We may well revisit the project in the future, but for this year we would not be able to do Phil Morris Racing, RLR Motorsports, Honda or John McGuinness justice and we feel it is only fair to withdraw our entry.”



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