IT must have hurt. I mean really hurt. Firstly Honda loses its first Formula 1 TT in almost two decades and then to add insult to injury the race is won by a road bike. A slightly modified one, granted, but a road bike, I ask you!

Hondas had scooped every Formula 1 race since super-sideburned Rocket Ron Haslam crossed the line on a 999cc machine in 1982. That was until last year's TT. Still, 17 straight wins is a hell of a record.

"I'm sure it did hurt Honda losing the F1 race after such a long winning run," says Russell Savory, the ‘RS’ in RS Performance and head of the successful Sanyo First National Honda squad.

That could be an understatement.

Last year, Yamaha's purposeful YZF-R1 in the hands of David Jefferies and tuners V&M did the business. Three wins in a week for the Yamaha in the F1, Production and Senior against some stiff Honda competition was quite an achievement, but one that Russell hopes his new machine is going to stop happening again.

The years of Honda's V4 domination of the Isle of Man looks to have ended with the demise of the RC45 and the whole V4 project, but it looks as if Honda is pinning its hopes for TT F1 glory not on the new VTR1000 SP-1 but on an old, trusted campaigner - the CBR900RR FireBlade.

Russell and Honda are looking to take a leaf out of Yamaha's TT winning book. Take a road bike, no, a superb road bike and capitalise on recent changes to F1 regulations by turning it into the ultimate road racer for the world's ultimate road race.

It's blood red, decorated only with the flying wing of Honda and it's been built for one sole purpose: to win the Isle of Man TT Formula 1 and restore Honda’s corporate pride.

The whole Formula 1 FireBlade project is the brainchild of Russell and the leader of the CBR900RR design team - Tadao Baba, the father of the FireBlade.

Perhaps unusually for a race bike the impetus for the F1 FireBlade hasn't come from Honda's huge racing arm - HRC (Honda Race Corporation) but instead Baba-san himself, both Honda Japan and Europe research and development arms and - of course - Russell and RS Performance.

So what does it take to turn the standard CBR900RR FireBlade into a potential TT-winning beast? If anyone should know, it's Russell. He helped mastermind Jim Moodie's 1998 Production TT win on the 'Blade which was also Honda's 100th TT win. Also, along with TT legend Mick Grant, Russell built the hugely capable Evo FireBlade which celebrated Moodie's success and was originally aimed at following it up in road racing and short circuit racing before being scuppered by the rule makers.

Russell is ultimately cagey about just what's been done to the standard bike: "We can't give too much away as we obviously don't want our rivals learning about exactly what we're up to," but he has allowed us a sniff of what they can expect to see barrelling down Bray Hill come June.

Firstly, in standard form the FireBlade is perhaps one of the best handling bikes you can buy for the road, but the unique stresses and strains that the 37.73-mile Isle of Man circuit impose on a bike demand quite a bit more if success is to be achieved.

A good suspension system and set up is crucial over the bumps at the TT and that's why Russell and the team are using chunky 46mm diameter inverted forks from the Swedish suspension specialists Ohlins. These are trick-as-they-come race specialities and are the same specification as those you see at the front end of many World Superbike machines.

Wheels are lightweight Dymags with a 17-inch front and 16.5-inch rear along with dinner-plate-sized 320mm discs gripped by Brembo race calipers.

At the time of writing the team still have plenty of testing to do, so they've yet to make a decision on exactly what make of rear shock they'll be using on the bike during the TT fortnight.

RS Performance has joined forces with another Honda affiliated unit - Harris Performance, who run factory-kitted VTR SP-1s in the British Superbike championship - to build a beautiful, but strong swingarm which is more suited to the stresses and strains of Island life, including the quick tyre changes which are a necessity during the races.

Russell had the rolling chassis ready early for the motor and its various bits and pieces to slot in. The F1 'Blade's heart is very special. So special even Russell at the time of writing hadn't finished constructing it, as many parts hadn't yet arrived from Honda R&D.

"We're looking forward to getting our hands on the various bits," he says. "It's going to have special pistons, cams, valves, valve springs, gearbox and have a different airbox system to the standard machine." Russell's experience with fuel injection will also be handy when they change the PGM-FI injector system for optimum power.

All this gubbins is mated to a full-system exhaust made by Micron. Being a full system it does away with the powervalve system in the standard exhaust which helps the bike produce useable chunks of power anywhere in the rev range, as being a race bike all you want is the maximum top end power.

To be competitive power has to be in the region of the V&M R1's 176bhp and keeping all this lot cool on the rush over the mountain is a big race radiator. Obviously, everything that's not needed to go racing, such as lights, indicators and clocks has been removed and handlebars and footpegs replaced with lightweight race items.

Baba-san himself has taken an active part in the development of the bike. He was present to watch the Y2K FireBlade's first international meeting in the Superstock race at Brands Hatch at the end of March. Sadly for him, the first machine across the line was a Yamaha R1, but he's been devoting a lot of his own time to turn that around in time for the TT races.

"I get to see Baba-san about two or three times a year," says Russell, "just before our test session he flew over from Japan for a morning appointment before flying back that evening. That's commitment for you!"

Despite all this preparation the TT is not the sort of place where you can bank on winning, even with Honda's pedigree. "You won’t catch me saying that we're definitely going to win," says Russell. "But these machines are very special and are definitely in with a chance."