Relentless by TAS Suzuki team principal Philip Neill has said the technical infringement that saw Bruce Anstey stripped of victory was a genuine mistake. Kiwi Anstey romped to victory in the first Relentless Supersport Junior race on Monday afternoon, finishing ahead of Steve Plater, with John McGuinness in third. He had also set a new Supersport lap record on lap two of the race as he headed to what looked like a dominant victory. Just three hours later the race organisers announced Anstey had been disqualified from the race and Plater promoted to the win – his maiden TT victory in only his second year. McGuinness was promoted to second and Keith Amor to the final podium place. The organisers said the exclusion was due to ‘a technical breech of the homologation rules for Supersport machines’. The Relentless by TAS Suzuki team, which had already won the Dainese Superbike TT and Scottish Life International Superstock TT with Cameron Donald, said the disqualification came when ‘an after-market part, not supplied by Suzuki, was discovered to be outside the tolerance levels set by the TT organisers for the Supersport class’.
Neill said: "We are holding our hands up and saying we’ve made a genuine mistake.It’s a hard way to discover that an after-market part was marked incorrectly, and our engine builder is very disappointed that he didn’t discover the discrepancy. We’re all human and mistakes can happen.
"The TT organisers are also stating this was not a deliberate attempt to cheat. I would like to apologise to all the other competitors and congratulate the new winner of the race. The way forward is to correct the mistake and hopefully give Bruce the opportunity to win the TT Supersport race two on Wednesday. I would also like to state, the end result does not take anything away from Bruce’s performance today – he was simply phenomenal."