Bruce Anstey got his first taste of the Isle of Man Mountain Course on Honda’s RC213V-S MotoGP replica during tonight’s practice session and the Kiwi completed his opening lap - the first time he’d ever ridden the bike - at an impressive 122.082mph. However, setting the fastest time through the speed trap at 193.4mph, he increased that to 127.071mph second time around, setting an almost identical lap on his third lap despite encountering traffic.

The Kiwi only sat on the machine for the first time on Sunday evening and had hoped to test the bike at Jurby on Monday afternoon but that opportunity never arose and the bike had only been run in on the dyno as a result - so the first time he rode the bike came as he headed down towards Bray Hill for the first time.

Anstey did his first lap of the night on his regular Valvoline by Padgett’s Fireblade, at a leisurely 117.83mph, but he pulled in straightaway to take the exotic machine out. With conditions perfect all the way round the 37 and 3/4-mile course, the 47-year old successfully made it all the way round and was immediately happy with the performance of the exotic machine.

“I was a bit apprehensive beforehand as setting off down Bray Hill on a bike you’ve never ridden before is quite daunting. Clive’s done so much work and so many things have had to be hand made and it was literally only finished just in time to get it through scrutineering,” Anstey told Bikesport News.

“For its very first lap though, it felt pretty good and the V4 power is so smooth. The bike feels like a 600 to ride but it’s lighter and faster. Out of the corners, it drove really well with good torque and I was surprised at how stable it was. That was one thing I was worried about but it was fine over the bumps and flicking it from left to right was so much easier than a Superbike.

“I’m pleasantly surprised and pleased with the lap times and the bike’s certainly strong everywhere. Having less weight makes such a big difference and although the bike’s small, it has quite a bit of room and there was no problem in that area. i don’t have that much experience on a V4 and whilst we have some changes to make, we’re not a million miles away.

Team boss Clive Padgett and his team have put in awful lot of work to get the bike ready for the night’s session, such as a 24-litre tank being made which has then meant a new subframe has had to be made to fit the tank, different brackets being made to fit the exhaust etc. Essentially, fixing one thing has led into another 20 things being altered. Padgett was equally pleased.

“It’s a great start for us and our experience has helped us get the bike in the ball park with its first outing. It’s not a MotoGP but it’s an incredibly good road bike, probably the best out there, whuch we’ve converted into a race bike but we now know where it’s strong and where we can improve. We know it can do two laps on a tank of fuel but to do 122mph from a standing start was very good - but then again, Bruce never surprises me! The ideas been there for a long time but pulling it all together has taken a time as we’ve had to get so many parts made for it - it didn’t have any bodywork until last Wednesday and we only got the fuel tank last Friday.”