Lincolnshire's Gary Johnson carried over his strong practice form into race week on Saturday when he claimed third in the opening Superbike race at the Isle of Man TT. Indeed, it could have been better had he not received a 30-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane.

It was the second TT podium for the 30-year old and included a first ever 130mph lap of the Mountain Course - 130.450mph - as he got to within 2.7s of the lead on the opening lap. Ultimately, the East Coast Racing Honda rider fell into a ferocious battle with Guy Martin, the gap between the two just 0.79s at half race distance but the penalty - for doing 60.206mph and thus over the 60mph limit - saw him docked 30 seconds and drop back to fourth behind Cameron Donald. With Martin going out on lap, he was back up to 3rd and here he remained, just 9.67s behind the Australian at the chequered flag.

"I'm really pleased with third and I knew I'd need to lap at over 130mph from the off to be in with a chance and to do just that put me in with a shout. The bike was flying but we were having a little problem with the fuel surging on the send, fourth and sixth laps from the Bungalow onwards so we need to look at that whilst the penalty obviously didn't help," said Johnson, speaking to bikesportnews.com this afternoon.

"I didn't know I'd got one until the end but saw my board go from P2 to P4 so I'll have to make sure I don't make that mistake again - I'm off to stamp my feet now and go and sulk in the van!! It was purely my fault though and I was over the limit so fair's fair.

"It's a brand new team this year with a lot of personal sponsors chipping in to make it happenand to be sitting here now is great. When I started here in 2007, the dream was to race with the likes of John and I was battling with him in the early stages so for it to become reality is superb. Once again though, he was that bit better than everyone else."