After two days of miserable weather, the sunshine returned to the Isle of Man and Thursday evening’s practice session was held in almost perfect conditions. A few damp patches remained under the trees after two days of rain and riders were also warned off mist in the Waterworks section. However, it was a civilian incident in the Ballaugh area that prevented the action getting underway on time and it was 6.41pm when the first riders blasted off the line, Ryan Farquhar and Cameron Donald leading the field away.

As per Monday evening, the majority of riders were Superbike mounted with Farquhar being the main exception on his 600cc Kawasaki and it was again Guy Martin who completed the first lap at a speed of 126.191mph. The Suzuki pairing of Bruce Anstey and Adrian Archibald were both over 125mph whilst John McGuinness, who had made a number of changes to the Padgett’s Honda Fireblade, was down the order at 121.58mph. Dan Stewart again impressed at 123.95mph on his Superstock machine with Ian Hutchinson, Carl Rennie, Gary Johnson and Ian Lougher also lapping above 122mph.

Second time around and the speeds increased with Martin upping his pace to 127.08mph, Anstey 126.47mph and Donald 126.07mph. Meanwhile, Farquhar was setting the pace in the 600’s at 122.03mph with impressive Swede Mats Nilsson posting his first ever 120mph lap at 120.09mph.

The pits were a hive of activity with riders frequently calling in to either make changes or swap machines but a number of riders were out of luck on the circuit with Michael Dunlop, Tim Poole and Paul Hunt all reported as having stopped. Davy Morgan only got as far as the end of pit lane before problems struck and he had to make a quick switch to his Superstock machine in order to get his session started.

McGuinness did three laps on his Superbike as he sought to get the set up more to his liking and he set a lap of 126.69mph on his final lap to slot into second overall behind Martin. One of the stars of the evening though was Farquhar who took his Superstock machine around at 126.65mph, comfortably quicker than his personal best of 125.74mph set back in 2005. Anstey’s earlier lap saw him finish 4th on the leaderboard with Hutchinson (126.29mph) also making strides forward with the R1 Yamaha.

Farquhar’s lap saw him top the Superstock class by a considerable margin ahead of Martin (124.59), Stewart (123.59), Archibald (122.99), Johnson (122.98) and Conor Cummins (122.47).

In the Supersport class, a final lap of 122.65mph saw Anstey top the timesheets and he led the way from Farquhar (122.03), Plater (121.84), Keith Amor (121.62), Donald (120.85) and Ian Lougher (120.09). Meanwhile, the two newcomers were again impressing greatly with Jamie Robinson upping his speeds to 114.39mph and James Hillier only fractions behind at 114.26mph.

After their wet session on Tuesday evening, the F2 Sidecars finally got a decent run and the 55-minute session saw all crews take advantage of the good conditions with some fast laps being posted. Dave Molyneux and Dan Sayle look to have firmly got to grips with their Suzuki powered outfit and after an opening lap of 114.95mph, they went slightly quicker second time around at 115.06mph.

Nick Crowe and Mark Cox also put in two laps but it was their opening speed of 112.94mph that saw them end up in second with Klaus Klaffenbock and Christian Parzer one place back at 111.46mph. John Holden/Andy Winkle (111.07mph), Steve Norbury/Rick Long (109.90) and Phil Dongworth/Stu Castles (109.64) completed the top six whilst Tim Reeves and Patrick Farrance lapped at a brilliant 107.95mph on their third lap to end the session in 9th.

Practice Times

Superbike Times

Superstock Times

Supersport Times

Sidecar Times