M-TEC Company President, Mr Tomoyuki HASHIMOTO, confirmed that 23-time TT winner John McGuinness is back with TEAM MUGEN for 2017, and this year will be partnered by Guy Martin, who is also team-mate to McGuinness in the Honda Racing team at this year’s TT. After missing out on a hat-trick of victories in 2016 with a freak incident that shut down his machine in the middle of the race through no fault of his own, McGuinness will undoubtedly return with even more determination to recapture the TT Zero crown in 2017. After a one year sabbatical from the TT while he concentrated on other challenges, Martin returns to the island with a renewed focus as well as an element of unfinished business at the TT as he targets his first race win. Both riders will fly to Tokyo in April where they will meet up with their 2017 TT Zero machines, SHINDEN ROKU (SHINDEN 6), and the dedicated team behind the machine that is aiming to break the land-mark 120mph barrier for the first time in the class. The team is the current lap record holder for the class with McGuinness’s lap of 119.279mph (18:58.743), which he set in winning the 2015 Race. Having been an integral part of the Mugen Shinden project since the start of the programme in 2012, for John McGuinness it will be like returning to family, and for Guy Martin it will be an introduction to the battery-powered bike that he hopes will take him to his first TT Zero victory. SHINDEN ROKU has been extensively developed from the 2016 race-winning machine, (SHINDEN GO) and will be unveiled at the 2017 Tokyo Motorcycle Show at Tokyo Big Sight in March, 2017. |