Ryan Farquhar secured a top ten finish in Saturday's opening Superbike TT race when he finished in 10th place on the MSS Colchester Kawasaki. The Dungannon ace had made further adjustments to the ZX-10R in preparation for the race and was able to set his fastest ever lap of the Mountain Course (in race conditions) on his way to yet another top ten result.

After heavy mist in Douglas delayed the start of the race by three and a half hours, it eventually got underway at 3.30pm and Ryan was soon blasting his way down towards Bray Hill. Making good progress on the opening lap, a speed of 127.903mph saw him slot in to a solid eighth place, just over three seconds adrift of fifth place. On the second lap, Ryan was pushed back a place by regular sparring partner from the Irish roads Keith Amor, a position he maintained on lap three.

As the race wore on, the handling troubles that Ryan had suffered in practice returned and he was unable to run at the pace that he had done on the opening two laps and, by the end of lap 4, he had slipped back one more place to 10th. Nevertheless, another 126mph+ lap on the final circuit saw Ryan hold on to his position and he was able to pick up another silver replica for his efforts, also being the first Kawasaki rider home.


Speaking afterwards Ryan said:

"It's good to get a finish on the Superbike and although the bike wasn't handling as I would have liked, we brought the bike home. On the smooth sections of the course, the bike was spot-on but through the bumpy stuff it was a real handful and difficult work. I was hoping to finish in the top 8 but the changes we'd made to the bike didn't quite work out whilst I also caught a few backmarkers in the wrong places, which lost me a bit of time, and I had a huge moment on the first lap at the end of the Mountain Mile. I went through the corner on exactly the same line and at the same speed as normal but the front just tucked under and I was lucky to stay on - my eyes went about three times bigger than normal! When I went through there on the second lap, there was a huge black line from where I'd lost it but we held on and I was pleased to get to the finish. Monday will, hopefully, see me closer to the front so let's hope today's my worst result of the week."

Ryan has two races on Monday when he'll be riding his own KMR Kawasaki's in the 4-lap Superstock and Supersport races.





Words: Phil Wain - Freelance PR