The Honda TT Legends team will start the 2013 24 Heures Moto at Le Mans in the top ten following the second qualifying session at the legendary French circuit today.
Michael Rutter, Simon Andrews, John McGuinness and Michael Dunlop took to the 4.185km track for 20-minutes each. Rutter and Dunlop bettered yesterday’s times, both posting a 1.39:2 lap, however a small issue with set up meant that Andrews and McGuinness were unable to improve. The new combined average time of 1.39:707 places the team ninth in the starting line-up ahead of tomorrow’s 24-hour race.
The team and riders remain upbeat ahead of the race and are determined to bring home a strong result. The final three-man line-up will be decided overnight and announced following tomorrow’s morning warm-up, before the race begins at 15.00 CET.
Neil Tuxworth – team manager
In general, qualifying has gone very well for us here and although we’ve had one or two minor problems that we need to address before the race, we’re confident that we can deal with them effectively. The performance of all the riders has been of a good level with very little difference in their lap times. We will now decide not only who will be in the final three-rider line up for the race but also the order in which they will run and who will be the lead rider to start the race. It’s particularly difficult as any three are capable of bringing home a good result.
John McGuinness
It didn’t go as well as it could have today but as we always say with the 24-hour races, your starting position is not overly important. What is important is consistency and having three riders all lapping at similar times, which is exactly what we have. On top of that we have a good feeling and we’re all hungry for it, so I just hope we get the result I believe we deserve.
Michael Rutter
I was pretty happy with my performance today as I managed to go a bit quicker. The weather is improving and I think we have a laid the groundwork to get a strong result in the race. All we can do now is try our best and see what tomorrow brings.
Simon Andrews
After watching Rutter’s improvement and with the sun coming out, I was looking forward to getting on the bike and putting a good lap together to improve our time. Unfortunately, we had a small issue that meant I had to switch to the second bike mid-session and we weren’t able to break out of the mid-pack. Either way, top ten is fine for EWC as it’s a long race and anything can happen.
Michael Dunlop
It’s not been perfect today but we have definitely made progress. It’s all about compromise and that means you may not always be 100% happy but if it’s working for everyone it’s good. After being here all week we’re ready to get going and get the race started.
Communication Honda Racing TT Legends - www.HondaTTLegends.com -