John McGuinness is out of this year’s Isle of Man TT after suffering serious injuries in a crash at the NorthWest 200 on Thursday.

The Morecambe Missile crashed heavily during Superbike qualifying aboard his new Honda Fireblade and was airlifted to hospital.

In a team statement released earlier today (Friday), Honda confirmed the 23-time TT winner has been diagnosed with a compound fracture to his right lower leg as well as four broken vertebrae and three broken back ribs.

Therefore he will now wear a cast for up to six weeks in treatment for the vertebrae and will remain at Royal Victoria Hospital for around one week as part of the recuperation process.

Meanwhile, Honda Racing has received McGuinness’s bike from the race organisers and will perform a detailed analysis of the bike and ECU data at its headquarters in Louth. As a result, the team has withdrawn from the Superstock and Superbike races at the North West 200.

The team will next be on track at Castle Combe in a couple of weeks’ time as part of its preparation for the TT.

Jonny Twelvetrees, team manager, commented: ‘Unfortunately John’s incident at Primrose Hill during qualifying has resulted in quite a substantial injury to his right tibia and fibula.

‘It is a real blow to John and the team, but he’s got an incredible amount of spirit and is in very good hands with the medical staff at the Royal Victoria Hospital.

‘We now need to determine what happened and will sit out the Superstock and Superbike races, get back to Louth to analyse John’s bike and re-group ahead of our next test at Castle Combe in a couple of weeks before we head to the Isle of Man.’