The North West 200 has been a positive outing for the Honda Racing team and its duo John McGuinness and Conor Cummins, which has seen both riders and the Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP competitive throughout the week.

This afternoon the first Superbike race of the day got underway as weather conditions around the 8.9-mile triangle circuit continued with glorious sunshine. McGuinness started from eighth on the grid, while team-mate Cummins was just behind in 12th.

Both Honda riders got away from the start and managed to slot themselves into the leading top-ten group where the pace was strong. Cummins made a move on McGuinness and the team-mates were running eighth and ninth by the end of lap one.

By the third rotation the order had swapped and the ‘Morecambe-missile’ had passed the ‘Ramsey Rocket’ and the pair were chasing down the front-runners sitting seventh and eighth respectively.

At the end of the fourth lap, with three laps remaining, the race was red flagged due to an incident with Padgetts Honda’s Bruce Anstey, who was left unhurt from his fall. The race was declared just as the leading group crossed the line going into the fifth lap, which saw McGuinness home sixth and Cummins seventh.

Unfortunately the rest of the North West 200 has been cancelled due to an incident in the Supertwin race. The Honda Racing team would like to extend its thoughts and prayers to the competitors’ family, friends and team at this difficult time.

The Honda Racing squad will now return to its Louth-based workshop and prepare both of the Fireblade machines for the Isle of Man TT, which sees practice start on Saturday 28 May and race week start with the Superbike race on Saturday 4 June and the Senior TT on Friday 10 June. Where both McGuinness and Cummins will compete on the Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP machines.