Monday evening’s practice session was held in dry, bright conditions but with strong winds all over the Island, caution still had to be exercised by all of the competitors with the 32nd milestone, in particular, being singled out as an area to watch. Just like Saturday, it was Guy Martin and Cameron Donald who led the field away on their Superbikes and James McBride and Carl Rennie, Ryan Farquhar and Conor Cummins, and Adrian Archibald and Bruce Anstey followed them in quick succession. All were Superbike mounted with the exception of Cummins who opted for his Supersport machine whilst Keith Amor and Chris Palmer also took out their 600cc mounts.

One man who was having problems was Ian Hutchinson and his R6 Yamaha caught fire in the holding area before the session had even begun. The Bingley rider was clearly unsettled but he eventually went out although he was again out of luck, pulling off the course at the Cronk y Voddy and making his way back to the Grandstand. He went out on his Superstock bike whilst his teammate Steve Plater also had problems although he did make it to Cronk ny Mona before the gremlins struck.

The first man back at the Grandstand was again Martin and with a lap of 124.81mph he had opened up a small gap over Donald who wasn’t far behind at 124.51mph. Anstey and Archibald also completed their lap in close formation lapping at 124.57mph and 124.35mph respectively whilst John McGuinness took his Padgett’s Honda around at 124.26mph. Martin pulled in to jump on his 600cc Honda but only got as far as the end of pit lane when he encountered problems and a quick change saw him out on his Superstock machine.

The lap speeds increased on the second lap and it was McGuinness who upped the ante lapping at 125.96mph but it was close at the top with Archibald (125.86), Donald (125.82) and Anstey (125.77) only fractions behind whilst Ryan Farquhar posted an impressive lap of 125.35mph, not too far off his best ever lap around the Mountain Course. Dan Stewart, Gary Johnson and Ian Lougher lapped above 123mph on their Superbikes whilst Les Shand put in a lap of 121.37mph on his Superstock Yamaha.

With conditions good, the riders were keen to get in as many laps as possible on all of their machines and McGuinness set the fastest Supersport lap of the evening at 122.30mph ahead of Cummins (121.49mph), Hutchinson (120.36) and Stewart (119.95). Swedish rider Mats Nilsson looked fast at 119.82mph whilst Plater was also looking strong on the AIM R6 Yamaha with a speed of 119.78mph.

In the Superstock class it was that man Anstey again who went to the top of the tree with a speed of 125.94mph, faster than his earlier Superbike time, whilst Martin was again going well at 124.08mph. Donald was third at 123.29mph with James McBride in fourth at 122.12. However, the Kettering man was involved in a high-speed incident at Gorse Lea in the final minutes of the session. He was taken to Nobles Hospital and is described as having major fractures. Angelo Conti was described as having a leg injury after an incident at the 33rd.

With riders clearly held up by the incident, the majority of positions remained the same but Martin had been ahead on the road and he went to the top of the Superbike class with a final lap of 126.02mph.

Meanwhile, the two newcomers, James Hillier and Jamie Robinson, were steadily improving lapping at 110.29mph and 109.06mph respectively.

With McBride’s accident having occurred, there was obviously debris to be cleared and, subsequently, the F2 sidecars lost half of their session, eventually getting underway at just after 8.25pm. Nick Crowe and Mark Cox again set the pace at 112.85mph on their LCR Honda whilst the Suzuki powered outfit of John Holden and Andy Winkle wasn’t too far behind at 111mph. Klaus Klaffenbock and Christina Parzer again looked strong at 109.13mph just ahead of Simon Neary/Jamie Winn (108.83) and Phil Dongworth/Stu Castles (108.05).

Tim Reeves and Patrick Farrance, meanwhile, showed their world championship class with a lap of 103.71mph to clearly mark them as one to watch and fellow newcomers Mark and David Brown were also impressive at 100.87mph.

Dave Molyneux and Dan Sayle encountered a few problems and could only post a lap of 107.52mph whilst Steve Norbury and Rick Long also circulated relatively slowly at 101.03mph.

With the 30-minute delay, the chairs were only able to manage one lap and they will be hoping the fine weather remains for tomorrow evening’s session.

Practice Times

Sidecars

Superbike

Supersport

Superstock