Dungannon's Ryan Farquhar has endured a problematical week of practice so far at the 2011 Isle of Man TT Races, with the KMR Kawasaki rider struggling to complete a flying lap on any of his machines.
With the removal of Saturday practice from this year's schedule, Monday evening was essentially the warm up session but with damp conditions around the course, speeds were considerably down on what everyone has become accustomed to in recent years. Taking his all-new Superbike out for the first time though, Farquhar completed two laps, the fastest of which was 119.502mph, and although it was very much early days, he was happy with the initial performance of the machine.
With far better conditions on Tuesday evening, the pace of the main contenders increased considerably and Farquhar's opening lap on the Superbike was a more rapid 124.051mph. However, as he quickened his pace on the second lap, he started to notice a slight problem with the engine and so pulled in at Kerromoar, approximately 20 miles around the course. Unfortunately, that meant he was stranded with no way of getting back to the paddock and so he missed out on a full session of practice, his main rivals completing five laps of the 37 and 3/4-mile course.
With the Superbike out of action until Thursday, Farquhar got his first laps in on the Superstock bike during Wednesday evening, which again saw good conditions. He was able to complete two laps, the best at 124.394mph which made him 4th quickest but overheating problems forced him to stop at Sulby before he was able to proceed later on in the session. That resulted him in jumping onto the Supersport bike for the first time during the week and two steady laps late in the session saw him put in a speed of 119.790mph.
"It's been a frustrating week so far and we've had nothing but problems to say the least! With Monday being damp, we just had a couple of steady laps and Tuesday was the night when I really wanted to get stuck in properly but coming through Sulby Bridge and Ginger Hall, the engine made a slight noise so I pulled in just round the corner at Kerromoar and that was my night over as there's simply no way of getting back from there," said Farquhar.
"I lost a really good session that night but I went back out on the stocker on Wednesday only to run into a few overheating problems. I got a half decent lap in but I've got a fair way to go yet before I'm where I want to be. Losing the track time has put us on the back foot a bit but that's the Isle of Man for you so we'll be back out on Thursday to give it a go and, hopefully, get the bikes closer to where I want to be. The first race is right around the corner now so we need to get some good laps in tonight otherwise it's going to be a longer fortnight. The saying goes 'bad practice week, good race week', so I'm hoping that's the case!"
