John McGuinness won his 21st TT race on Wednesday morning when he took the SES TT Zero race in record-breaking style. Riding the Mugen Shinden, McGuinness was always in the lead and with a stunning new lap record of 117.366mph, he came home 23.3s clear of team-mate Bruce Anstey. Rob Barber, on the Ohio State University Buckeye machine, took third.
With dry conditions all round the course, despite dark clouds looming overhead, McGuinness, number one on the road, swept through Glen Helen 4.9s clear of Anstey with Robert Wilson over a minute adrift in third. His advantage over Barber was only slight though at just 7.5s. University teams Paul Owen (Brunel Racing) and George Spence (Kingston University) were early reported retirements.
Through Ballaugh McGuinness had almost doubled his lead and went through the Sulby speed trap at 154.3mph with four seconds now the difference between Wilson and Barber in third and fourth although it was the latter who held the final podium position.
McGuinness was clearly in control, increasing his lead at every timing point, and by Ramsey Hairpin it was up to 11.8s and unless Anstey was operating a different strategy and planning on a quicker run up and down the Mountain, the win was seemingly his. Barber was still in third now some 2m45s behind.
McGuinness added another seven seconds to his lead at the Bungalow and as he swept along Glencrutchery road, he completed the lap at a brilliant 117.366mph (19:17.300), the first official lap under 20 minutes for an electric bike around the mountain course, shattering Michael Rutter's lap record of 20:38.461 (109.675mph) set in last year's race by over a minute.
When Anstey, who had started 30 seconds later, crossed the line, the official gap was 23.3s with the Kiwi also well inside the old lap record with a speed of 115.048mph.
The battle for third went all the way to the end and it was Barber, the 2009 race winner, who prevailed by the tiny margin of 0.370s with Wilson obviously disappointed to have missed out. Mark Miller was the only other finisher in fifth with Russ Mountford (Arc-EV3/ARC EV Engineering) and Timothee Monot also being forced to retire.
