Ivan Lintin and the RC Express Racing team bounced back from their Isle of Man Superbike TT race retirement to record an excellent 12th place finish in Monday evening’s Supersport encounter.
Riding the ZX-6R Kawasaki, the team were having their first outing in the class, one where Lintin has previously excelled and he didn’t disappoint in the four lap race. Starting from number 17, Ivan’s opening lap of 122.055mph placed him in 16th place and with a near identical lap second time around, he moved up two places to 14th.
With an excellent pit stop, Ivan was well placed for the second half of the race whilst he was also receiving good signals around the course, particularly from Tom Parrish at Sulby. Indeed, going into the fourth and final lap, he’d jumped up to 11th although his gap over David Johnson was only 1.8s.
The Australian really flew on the last lap though and although Ivan also posted his best lap of the race at 123.068mph, he had to settle for 12th place. It was yet another silver replica for the Bardney resident and the result has got the team’s campaign firmly up and running.
Ivan Lintin: “It’s good to get a finish under our belt for both myself and the team and we’re happy with the 12th place finish. I knew David was going to be strong so my plan for the race was to try and keep him in sight the whole way through and I thought if I could do that, I wouldn’t be far off the top ten. I managed to do it until the last lap when he edged away from me but I was really happy with how I rode during the race and how the bike performed. It was a good twelfth place particularly as not many riders dropped out and it gives us a great boost for the rest of the week.”
Ben Constable, Team Co-Owner: “What can I say, the bike was mint, the pit stop was mint and Ivan was mint! As a team, it was our first ever 600cc race and we’ve been learning all the time as we know how temperamental Supersport bikes can be. The bike never missed a beat and Ivan put in a great ride in what was a mega-competitive field. When you look at all the TT winners and podium finishers ahead of him, he was in some great company. We’ll look to see if we can improve the bike for the second race but we’re looking forward to the Superstock race now and are confident of another good result.”
Ivan is back out in action in Tuesday afternoon’s four-lap Superstock race where he’ll be back on board the RC Express Racing ZX-10R Kawasaki.
Picture by Jon Jessop Photography
