It was during testing for the North West 200 that the factory Honda driver, winner of 23 Tourist Trophy races, fell heavily, fracturing his right leg, four vertebrae and three ribs. Not being sure of the cause of the accident, the team preferred to forfeit the entire NW200 Superbike and Superstock races.
John McGuinness is better known for his fantastic road racing career than for his Grand Prix participations, although he raced four British GPs, in 250 in 1997 on Aprilia, then in 500 in 1998 (Honda Paul Bird), 99 (Honda Team Vimto) and 2000 (Demon Vimto Honda).
According to Johnny Twelvetrees, the team manager, “ Unfortunately, John's incident at Primrose Hill during qualifying resulted in a serious injury to his tibia and fibula. This is a real blow to John and the team, but he has kept his spirits up and is in very good hands with the medical staff at the Royal Victoria Hospital. We now need to work out what happened and forgo the Superstock and Superbike races, return to Louth to analyze John's bike and prepare for our next event at Castle Combe in a few weeks before heading to the Isle of Man. »
The competitiveness of the 2017 Honda is not extraordinary, as we saw at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and World Superbike, which forces riders to take more risks to try to obtain results. Was McGuinness' accident caused by pilot error or a problem with the machine? The team will know after examining the bike in detail. What is certain is that Honda withdrew all its official 1000s from the race (Superbike and Superstock), but that John's teammate, Guy Martin, continues to participate in the competition with his 600 Supersport.
To Rebecca McGuinness, John's wife, “This wasn't how we wanted our day, but I'm happy to still have my man with us. In this accident, he was a lucky boy.”
The physical consequences of this major accident could possibly make John consider putting an end to his competitive activities. Four broken vertebrae at 45 years old is no small thing, especially if the reason for the fall is of technical origin. But we have seen McGuinness come back after terrible accidents in the past. However, he recently declared that he did not wish to try to beat the record of 26 victories at the TT of Joey Dunlop, out of respect for his illustrious predecessor. Let's already wish him that he recovers as quickly and as well as possible from his recent accident.
