I first met McGuinness at the Isle of Man TT in 2011. I was on the island to write a colour piece about the week’s racing and the big characters and John was top of the interview list.

Having organised the trip at the last minute the only hire car left on the island was a pink soft-top Nissan Micra. I decided to take my ‘bike helmet and hitch lifts. It was because of a particularly mad Frenchman – who had given me a lift from my campsite to the paddock that morning on his (very fast) BMW tourer – that I knocked on John’s motorhome door with slightly shaky hands.

John opened the door, invited me in and offered me a ‘cuppa’. Being relatively new to road racing it seemed odd that one of its most successful counterparts was happy to be making tea. Formula 1 this was not.

What followed was a fascinating 45 minutes chatting about the TT course and what makes it so special. By the end of it I had to keep reminding myself who McGuinness was such was his normality. To be fair, most road racers I have met are... For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy