MOTOGP AT THE TT

In 2019, Michael Rutter lapped the TT at 131mph on his GP-derived Honda RCV213V-S. This year, he’s back for more of the same. Here’s the bike’s story

- BIG MAC

It's universally accepted Man TT races are quite simply the ultimate race of any kind, let alone that the Isle of motorcycle. There probably isn’t a corner of the globe where someone isn’t familiar with the TT races – it’s that famous. At the risk of sounding cliché, it really is the ultimate test of man and machine, combining average speeds way above anything the premier class MotoGP could ever dream of and a test of durability and endurance of the machine with a race distance of well over 200 miles and a sustained mechanical pummelling far in excess of anything the bike’s designers ever had in mind when putting pen to paper.

Then there’s the human element of the test, where the riders must combine ultra-high levels of physical fitness and endurance with a mental state of perfect memory recall, focus and reflex so total and complete that if you could ask the rider their name while lapping the course, they probably wouldn’t be able to answer, such is the sheer amount of brain space required to complete six laps flat-out, let alone even contemplate winning. There isn’t another sport, never mind race, within motorsport that requires so much from man and machine while also having stakes that literally are the difference between life and death.