I realise this year is off the pace, and when I looked at the practices left, I was wondering where they will be this year compared to usual.

Takes a bit over 17 minutes per lap in practice, since I'm assuming no one is breaking records while working in the bike, and some of these class sessions are only an hour or so long, assuming adjustments and the like, how many laps do people get in.

A lot of these boys have three different bikes to dial in.

On a general note, this has just been twitterized - So now 1,539 practice  laps behind last year or over 58,000 miles difference - almost 2.5 trips around Earth!

Damn, that sounds grim. I hope the boys are all safe this year.

The amount of time allocated for practice over the last few years has not gone forward at all with the increase in the amount of reasons / restrictions etc that can now result in much less practice time if any at times on the track. I fully understand people have to get home on time - that scenario isn't anything to do with my point, there just seems to be a very very small potential available for less experienced riders to get lengthy track time in practice, the theory seems to be "it will all be fine if there's no weather problems, red flag issues or organisation issues" when in reality that isn't going to happen. Practice on track for the newer guys putting everything out there on the line there seems to be a secondary consideration before all the rules n regs.