Isle of Man TT legend John McGuinness is happy to have departed the seemingly-doomed Norton for this year’s international roads season on the Quattro Kawasaki but says it should have been better.
The 23-time TT winner will saddle up on the bike vacated by James Hillier for this year’s TT after riding Paul Bird’s Ducati Panigale V4R at the Macau Grand Prix – in practice at least – but that didn’t get any further down the 2020 road.
“I spoke to Birdy a bit with the Ducati, but that was a bit of Macau talk, they’re really expensive and hard to run aren’t they? A lot of work,” McGuinness told bikesportnews.com.
What did the deal for me was what I said earlier – 60 starts, 57 finishes, I need something that I’ll be confident to ride – I was always shitting myself on that Norton. I was like wondering what was going to drop off it.”
Norton will not run at the TT this year after the firm was taken into administration by Metro Bank and CEO Stuart Garner is facing serious questions from the pensions regulator, among others.
“I’m just a bit embarrassed really, how it’s all come out, I feel sorry for people who’ve lost out, but I don’t know all the details,” said McGuinness.
“It’s a bad ending isn’t it? A bad ending to what should have been an iconic thing.”
It is believed that Norton still owes McGuinness in the region of £60,000 in wages for last year’s TT.
Come back later for more on McGuinness and the switch to Kawasaki
