Full Practice Day at Isle of Man TT

Off to the slowest start in years, the Isle of Man TT extended the practice session to include a full day Saturday, pushing back the Superbike race to Sunday at 2:00 local time and the Sidecar race to Monday evening.

Ian Hutchinson was the first out this morning and ran the fastest lap this week with at 129.89, later upstaged by Michael Dunlop at 131.062. Finally with the perfect weather conditions riders were able to push testing both themselves and the machines tomorrow’s 6 lap Superbike race.

As the session wore on, the riders constantly pitted to either make changes to their Superbike or switch to their Supersport or Superstock machines and Lee Johnston was quickest in both of the latter. However, he crashed out towards the end of the session at Greeba Castle, sustaining minor injuries, and the session came to an early end. It was later reported that Johnston would be transferred to Liverpool for further assessment and treatment. Joe Akroyd on his Superstock machine was reported off at Glentramman and was also transferred to Liverpool while Danny Webb sustained a shoulder injury in an incident at Laurel Bank

In the Lightweight class, Martin Jessopp set the fastest lap of the week with a speed of 116.535mph on the Riders Motorcycles Kawasaki. 2015 and 2016 winner Ivan Lintin was less than half a second behind in second with Hickman’s final lap of 116.239mph seeing him jump up to third on the KMR/IEG Kawasaki.

Dan Cooper also lapped in excess of 116mph to place fourth ahead of Stefano Bonetti with Michael Dunlop putting in his first laps of the week on the McAdoo Racing Kawasaki to go sixth at 115.572mph. Gary Johnson, Josh Brookes and James Cowton were the other riders to lap at more than 115mph whilst McLean was again flying in tenth.