He may be an eight-time Tourist Trophy winner but after completing eight laps of the Isle of Man Mountain Course today, Ian Hutchinson admitted his finishing position was irrelevant.

The 32-year-old is back on the Isle after missing the best part of two years through injury, suffering two separate leg breaks in that time.

And after an eighth-place finish in Saturday’s Dainese Superbike race, the Bingley Bullet was back out for today's two races and continued his fine rehabilitation.

First up was the Monster Energy Supersport race and Hutchinson ended up ninth before then grabbing 11th in the Royal London 360 Superstock showdown.

And the former champion round the iconic 37.73-mile course admitted afterwards that, while it was frustrating to not be challenging at the top of the leaderboard, he had to take things one step at the time.

“I’m feeling good. We went into these races fighting and it was exactly what I expected,” he said.

“We got a strong ride in both races and made the fastest lap in the final lap of both races.

"We lost a lot of time in practice week with those two bikes, so I was expecting the Superstock to be a lot harder than that. I did all right really considering.

“I can’t complain, I was doubting whether I would actually finish the race, so positions are kind of irrelevant to me at the moment.

"We just need to keep chipping away making the bikes better, which we are doing, and keep going like that.

“I’m good, eight laps today is not bad on a broken leg. I’ve done a lot of work to make sure I could make it through this.

“It’s nice to be back here racing. I come here to race but I wasn’t able to properly on Saturday, but you have to start somewhere. Next year we’ll be back to race here properly.”

Meanwhile, there was heartache for Bradford rider Dean Harrison as a potentially outstanding day’s work ended up in smoke.

Harrison was turning heads in both the Supersport and Superstock races with a top-ten finish seemingly in the bag only for bike issues to strike him in both races.

As a result, a day of huge promise ended in tears and with an emotional Harrison cursing his luck, saying: “I feel sick to be honest, but I’ll take it on the chin and move on for the rest of the week.

“We set off all right and got past a few, then I came in the pits and the fuel just didn’t come out.

“In the Supersport, we broke down at Quarry Bends. I just heard a horrible banging, I don’t know how the bike is yet. It will be assessed and we’ll see if it’s OK for Wednesday.”

* The 2012 Isle of Man TT Races fuelled by Monster Energy will be shown every evening, usually at 9pm, on ITV4 from May 28 to June 11.

For more information on the event and for live Radio TT commentary and live timings, as well as the full ITV4 schedule, go to www.iomtt.com