John McGuinness made his return to Cadwell Park at the weekend for the first time since 2011 with round four of the Ducati Performance TriOptions Cup.

Although the Morecambe Missile took sixth place in the opening race of the Lincolnshire venue’s weekend, he had his first non-finish of the season when he retired from race two.

“It’s been a bit of an up and down weekend,” McGuinness admitted after race two, “but maybe that was to be expected with it being my first time here in a decade!

“It’s a great circuit to come to so it was good to be back although the conditions were ever-changing and that made it all that slightly more difficult.”
 
Having placed a strong fourth in Friday’s dry, free practice session, McGuinness was greeted by a damp track for Saturday morning’s qualifying session and the wet weather saw everyone’s pace reduced considerably. Indeed, the TT legend ended the short 20-minute session in ninth for the afternoon’s 10-lap race, where the weather was a lot more favourable.
 
That meant he lined up on the third row and a good start enabled him to move up two places at the completion of the opening lap. Pushed back to eighth by Elliott Pinson on the third lap, McGuinness was promoted back up the order to seventh a lap later when Luke Jones retired.
 
An off-track excursion for Pinson on the penultimate lap allowed the 23-times Isle of Man TT winner to gain another place with a solid sixth the outcome and 10 more championship points subsequently added to his tally.
 
It meant he started Sunday’s 12-lap race from the slightly more advanced position of seventh but the wet weather had returned and he unfortunately ran wide onto the grass at the first corner. It dropped him all the way down the order to 25th but although he worked his way back to 19th, he was forced to retire at two-thirds race distance.
 
“I felt good in both the wet and dry but, as I’ve said before, I need to be more aggressive in the opening couple of laps,” the Blue Earth Construction rider explained.
 
“The gaps open up a bit in the early stages and although I can always see the guys fighting for the podium ahead of me, I’m not able to reel them in. If I could get away with them, I’d be able to stay with them,” he confirmed.

“I was conscious of that in race two and made a good start but it was tight going into Coppice and I had to pick the bike up and take to the grass. Once there, I was a passenger as it was so wet and the race went downhill from there.

“It’s a shame to have our first DNF of the season but we’ll look to bounce back at the next round.”