Rees' road to fabled TT runs via ‘awkward’ Donington weekend and stay with the Morecambe missile
The Whakatāne 33-year-old has arrived safely on the Isle of Man after a frustrating British Superbike weekend — and a couple of nights staying with TT legend John McGuinness.
By Kent Gray
The aim, as ever, is to nail your set-up but Mitch Rees already knows there is no such thing as the perfect bike for the Isle of Man TT. The Whakatāne rider admitted as much after his brilliant, debut fortnight on the fabled Mountain Course last year.
Now the 33-year-old is discovering there may be no such thing as a perfect buildup either, even if you’re having plenty of fun all the same.
An “awkward”, weather-disrupted weekend at Donington Park brought the curtain down on the Kiwi’s British Superbike Championship (BSB) preparation before he boarded a ferry to the Isle of Man on Wednesday for his second TT campaign with the Milenco by Padgett’s Racing Team.
The Kiwi’s result from Sunday’s Pirelli National Superstock race at Donington didn’t leap off the page with Rees finishing 23rd, 32.803 seconds behind Northern Ireland’s David Allingham after crashes, a red-flag and rain interrupted the battle in England’s East Midlands.
But the result was secondary.
The three-time NZSBK Superbike champion made no secret of the fact the opening two BSB Superstock rounds at Oulton Park and Donington Park were never really about championship points. They were about laps, learning and fine-tuning his Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade before the most dangerous motorcycle meeting on earth.
“I was mainly going there to try and improve the bike a little bit before we head towards the TT, just a few little things to see if we could make some stuff a little nicer,” Rees told The Final Sector.
That mission was complicated almost immediately.
Friday’s dry running at Donington allowed the Kiwi #92 to work through setup changes, but Saturday qualifying wasn’t till 6pm and arrived with rain — limiting the usefulness of any data gathered for the ultra-fast (“fast, so fast…” as he said last year) and notoriously unforgiving Mountain Course.
“Anything we wanted to really try for, that was going to be helpful for the TT, didn’t really point us in the right direction because obviously it was then wet,” Rees said of Saturday’s qualifying.
Sunday brought more frustration.
When the superstock racing resumed after the red flag under declared wet conditions, much of the grid dived into pitlane for wets while others, including Rees, gambled on minimally-treaded (hypersport) tyres as conditions hovered between damp and dry.
It was exactly the kind of risk-reward calculation that becomes magnified with the TT looming days away.
“I just didn’t want to take any risk heading into TT,” Rees said.
“It was sort of a damp track, it was sort of showering [light rain], but it wasn’t like full wet, so it wasn’t really worth putting wets in. So just took it easy really and rode around, and then the last sort of two laps were dry, so managed to get a little bit in.”
That late-race improvement was reflected in the numbers.
Rees’ fastest lap — a 1:33.678 on the 7th and final lap — came as conditions improved, trimming the gap to the front-runners after a cautious opening phase. For perspective, race winner and championship leader Allingham clocked a best lap of 1:30.651 while 3rd placed Simon Reid produced the fastest circuit at 1:30.611. Remember, those riders are focused on BSB points, not solely the TT.
The Donington result followed a similarly difficult opening BSB round at Oulton Park where Rees qualified 22nd and finished 23rd.
But between those two short-circuit weekends came the performance that really mattered.
At the Northwest 200 on Northern Ireland’s Causeway Coast the previous weekend, Rees continued his rapid rise in international road racing with top-10 finishes in both Supersport (6th) and Superstock (10th), while also banking gritty 12th and 15th placings in the premier Superbike races against some of the biggest names in the sport.
Those results reinforced what last year’s TT debut had already suggested.
Rees is no longer simply a curious Kiwi newcomer trying to survive the roads. He is becoming a genuine contender on them, helped in no small measure by close friendships with the likes of two-time TT winner Davey Todd and Isle of Man legend John McGuinness, the latter third on the all-time list of behind Michael Dunlop and Joey Dunlop with 23 wins.
Last year Rees claimed the Vernon Cooper Trophy as the Isle of Man TT’s top solo newcomer while also becoming the fifth-fastest debutant in TT history. It was a remarkable achievement given the scale, complexity and mythology of the 60.7km Mountain Course.
After that rookie campaign, Rees offered a line that now feels equally relevant to his imperfect buildup this year.
“You’re never going to have a perfect bike around the TT course.”
What matters is arriving ready enough when practice begins on Monday. It helps being able to chew the ear of Todd and stay at McGuinness’ Morecambe “ranch”, as Rees did for a couple of nights post Donington and before catching the ferry from Heysham.
“We’ve got a Wednesday morning ferry to the Isle of Man and then we’re setting up the team truck and accommodation living, got a motorhome over there, so you’re in the paddock for the TT two weeks. And then yeah, on track next Monday.”
Rees will campaign Hondas across five classes at this year’s TT — Superbike, Superstock, Sportbike and Senior TT on the CBR1000RR-R, and Supersport on a CBR600 and — before returning home to New Zealand where his domestic ambitions remain just as significant.
The reality of international road racing for a Kiwi rider is brutally financial, making riding at home easier.
“Unfortunately I don’t have a big sponsor, heaps of money that helps pay for it all,” Rees admitted.
“But there’s a bunch of small guys, friends that help put in, and we’ve done a bunch of stuff with our raffle and everything this year that made it happen.”
Once the TT concludes, the focus quickly swings back to the Team Rees dealership in Whakatāne and another New Zealand summer campaign, starting with December’s Suzuki International Series and the 75th anniversary Cemetery Circuit races in Whanganui on Boxing Day.
Rees will arrive home as the reigning Suzuki International Series Superbike champion after claiming a fifth consecutive title in 2025, while also dominating the iconic Cemetery Circuit with victories in the premier Formula One/Superbike class, the New Zealand F1 TT title and the prestigious Robert Holden Memorial feature race.
For now though, the Mountain Course calls again. And it demands nothing less than total focus.