The Honda TT Legends team finished the Oschersleben 8-hour in fourth place today after running yet another smooth and steady race with John McGuinness, Cameron Donald and Jason O’Halloran on board.
The race kicked off at 2pm with O’Halloran taking part in the running start. A dramatic first stint saw the safety car deployed in the opening lap after a superstock machine crashed out. In the same hour, EWC contenders YART ran off the track while Bolliger Team Switzerland collided with superstock team QERT, leaving all three playing catch up for the remainder of the race.
With two of its EWC rivals out of the running for a top five position, the Honda TT Legends team secured fourth place, while championship leaders SERT led the pack and BMW Motorrad France and Yamaha France GMT 94 tussled for the number two spot.
McGuinness, O’Halloran and Donald pushed hard for the next seven hours and despite losing time after a brief safety car appearance in hour six, brought the Honda TT Legends Fireblade home in fourth place without any problems. SERT led from start to finish, while BMW Motorrad France won the battle for second, pushing Yamaha GMT 94 into third.
The result leaves the Honda TT Legends joint second in the championship with BMW on 76 points ahead of the final round at Le Mans in September.
Russell Benney – race manager The team really raised its game this week. Both the riders and the crew have done an excellent job and while it would have been nice to get on the podium, we’ve done what we came here to do. Our objectives were to pull away from Bolliger and Folches and to close the gap on the top teams, both of which we have achieved. We find ourselves in equal second going in to the final round. It’s firmly our objective to be in the top three in the championship and mathematically we can take advantage of every point we can get at Le Mans to achieve that aim.
John McGuinness We pushed hard today and we had some objectives to get to the next level and we’ve done that. We’re a lot closer to the front runners than we have been all year. It was just a perfect race really; all the pit stops were good, no mistakes from any of the riders and we ended up fourth. It’s frustrating not to be on the podium because I feel like we deserve it, but it wasn’t for the lack of trying. We’re joint second and we have it all to play for.
Cameron Donald I’m absolutely thrilled. I didn’t qualify as well as I wanted to but at the end of the day, it’s endurance racing so it doesn’t matter so much. In the race, we were consistent and smooth, I felt good and John and Jason both rode really well. As a team, we brought home a result we should be proud of. It’s my personal best result in endurance and that feels really good. The last session in the dark was great, the bike is going well and we’re really moving forward. I’m looking forward to building on that at Le Mans and finishing the year off strong.
Jason O’Halloran I’ve really enjoyed this race. It was great to start for the team and doing the first stint was a nice feeling – more of a sprint race feel. Cam and John both did a great job and we held fourth for pretty much the whole race really. Fourth place is a good result and I’d like to see the team go keep that going in Le Mans to end the championship on a positive note.
