Arm pump, a rogue visor and a 127mph PB. Mitch Rees' 2026 TT is just warming up
A fumbling pit stop cost Rees a higher finish in Sunday’s Superbike TT but that’s already in the rear view mirror as he eyes Tuesday's Supersport and Superstock TTs.
By Kent Gray
Tuesday’s Supersport and rescheduled Superstock TTs— weather permitting — can’t come soon enough for Mitch Rees.
The Whakatāne 33-year-old goes into the three-lap Supersport (9:30pm NZT) and Superstock (5:30am Wednesday NZT) with the bit between his teeth after finishing 20th in his first full six-lap Superbike TT on Sunday, sealed with his fastest ever lap of the Mountain Course at 127.082mph.
After last year, when he crashed out on lap one of the opening Superbike TT before being denied the chance to race the Senior TT due to dangerous winds, finishing was a win in and of itself.
Rees was “really, really happy” afterwards but he also knows he left time and finishing places on the table after a fumbling second pitstop.
“Obviously we’re sort of sitting around that 15th to 20th spot quite, I would say, easily to a certain extent,” Rees told The Final Sector, understandably preferring to accentuate the positives first.
”I was really happy with that. Just riding… wasn’t worried about the result so much and where we were actually finally placed, just worried about getting around and being smooth and enjoying it.
“I felt better than I thought I was going to. You just never know what to expect when you’ve never done it before. I come good around lap three and four and felt really strong and really happy.
”Even like the last lap was my fastest lap [127.082], so obviously that’s a learning thing for me. I’m just getting more and more accustomed to going around here. Just bit by bit, not rushing it, which is great.”
The fastest lap coming last is not surprising. The Mountain Course is not a place that reveals itself quickly; experienced TT campaigners reckon it takes at least three years to fully get up to speed around the 60.72km circuit.
“The result and the lap definitely gives me some confidence going into the rest of the week. Every time we get out there is just a little bit of building up, and I’m just enjoying it to be fair. How can you not enjoy it?”
Arm pump at Ballacraine — Five kilometres in, five laps to go
Sunday’s TT, after Saturday’s Superstock TT Race 1 was postponed due to weather, didn’t start smoothly. By Ballacraine, barely five kilometres into the opening lap, with 55 kilometres still ahead and five more laps to follow, Rees had arm pump.
The debilitating forearm condition caused by sustained grip and tension can reduce a rider’s hands to near uselessness. At the TT, where the physical demands of six laps accumulate relentlessly, it’s a particularly brutal early visitor.
“It didn’t start so well,” Rees said. “I got arm pump by about Ballacraine on lap one.”
Rees rode through the pain and found his rhythm by laps three and four. And kept building from there.
He’d been running as high as 15th during the race, a position worth sitting with for a moment. The final finishing position of 20th, just 1.6 seconds behind 19th-placed Erno Kostamo (BMW 1000RR), tells only part of the story. The pit stops tell the rest.
Rees lost a combined 2 minutes 26.081 seconds across his two stops — 58.356 seconds on lap two and 1:27.725 on lap four, the second stop compromised when a visor refused to seat properly.
“The first pit stop went real good. The second pit stop, unfortunately, we had an issue locating the visor on one side. It just wouldn’t slot into place properly. But hey, I was really happy with the race regardless. Felt like I rode really well, felt comfortable.”
Rees finishing position won’t change now but the numbers are worth revisiting for context of just how well his second year campaign is progressing. Had Rees matched his lap two pit stop time of 58.356 seconds in the second stop rather than losing 1:27.725, he would have saved approximately 29 seconds. That drops his race total to around 1:48:47, enough, the numbers suggest, to have finished between 15th-placed Shaun Anderson (1:48:42.789) and 16th-placed Marcus Simpson (1:48:46.309). That unhelpful visor likely cost him four places.
For context, race winner Dean Harrison lost 1:59.128 seconds across his two stops. Peter Hickman spent 1:46.963 refuelling and changing rubber. Kostamo, who finished 1.6 seconds ahead of Rees on the road, lost just 1:52.067 seconds.
Still, there is no point dwelling on it. The lap times are what matter and Rees knows he has the road speed. The pit lane execution will come.
The 600 slows it all down. Fractionally
Looking ahead to Tuesday, Rees goes into the Supersport TT on his baby-blue CBR600RR with genuine optimism. The smaller bike has been a revelation.
“The 600 is definitely a little easier to ride,” he told iomttraces.com.
“It just slows everything down a little bit. I feel I’ve learned more this year just by being able to ride the Supersport.
“Ask anyone and they’ll tell you that the CBR600 is the easiest bike in the world to ride. It just lacks a little bit of horsepower but I’ve really been enjoying riding it and the times have been decently placed over qualifying.”
Slower, in this context, is a relative thing. At the TT, where familiarity with the Mountain Course is everything, a bike that allows the brain to process information a fraction more clearly is an advantage. Rees has used it exactly as intended, qualifying as high as 10th in Supersport across the week.
The first Superstock TT, postponed from Saturday due to adverse weather, will be run over three laps as originally scheduled. The Sportsbike TT earlier on Tuesday UK time has been shortened by one lap to accommodate this.
Whether tonight’s race goes ahead is another matter. The weather had closed when The Final Sector spoke with Rees on Monday and has cast a shadow over the week’s remaining schedule.
“The rest of the week’s not looking great, but we’ll just be here, and when we can go, we’ll go.”
Harrison dominant, Todd absent and a Kiwi taking notes
Harrison had been in a class of his own throughout the first week of free practice and qualifying and it wasn’t long after flag fall in Sunday’s Superbike TT that the #3 took a lead he’d never relinquish.
The Honda Racing UK rider set the fastest lap at 134.892mph and crossed the line 15.5 seconds clear of Hickman (Monster Energy BMW Motorrad by 8TEN Racing). Dunlop (MD Racing Honda) was third, 12.4 seconds further back.
It was Harrison’s first Superbike TT victory and his sixth TT win overall, placing him alongside legendary names including Jimmy Guthrie, Geoff Duke, John Surtees, Jim Redman and sidecar passenger Chas Birks in the all-time winners list.
Rees offered a measured paddock perspective on the state of play.
“Dean’s kind of had the rule of the roost this TT. Pete’s still coming back from his big one last year, and Michael’s, yeah, not really firing. Obviously it’d be good to have seen what would happen if Davey [Todd] was fit and healthy and out there, because I know that they push each other along.”
The absence of Todd — ruled out after his heavy crash at Daytona earlier in the year — has removed the one rider most likely to have pushed Harrison hardest. Rees knows that dynamic better than most, having spent much of his European campaign in the company of the Englishman.
At the TT, Rees and wife Mihi are parked alongside Todd in the motorhome zone, learning whatever the three-time TT winner has been willing to share. That knowledge is compounding now, lap by lap, race by race.
The Mountain Course is slowly giving up its secrets to the Kiwi. Now he just needs the weather to play ball.
