Reeves disappointed despite strong fourth place
World Champions Tim Reeves and Patrick Farrance were disappointed with fourth place in the opening Sure Sidecar TT on Monday.
After his amazing podium finish on his debut in 2008, Reeves was hoping for more of the same at the 2009 Isle of Man TT.
The Kent driver put in a strong performance during Monday’s three-lap race to take fourth, but admitted he was disappointed.
He explained the outfit’s engine was down on power, leaving him unable to push and missing out on a podium position by just 3 seconds, after 113 miles of racing.
There was some consolation; a personal best average lap speed of 112.896mph.
After a number of small technical problems during practice week, the final session on Friday finally saw everything come together and Reeves was able to lap close to 112mph.
Starting at number three, Reeves and Farrance found themselves in sixth place at Glen Helen on the opening lap, a position they maintained throughout the lap.
With race leader Nick Crowe going out at Greeba on the second lap and third placed John Holden falling by the wayside just a few miles later, Reeves and Farrance were elevated to fourth place and became embroiled in a terrific battle, on corrected time, with Simon Neary.
Going in to the final lap, Reeves and Farrance were only 2.21 seconds adrift of their rival and, although they lapped the final 37.73 miles faster than ever before, Neary also posted a personal best lap. Leaving Reeves and Farrance to settle for fourth after three hard laps, just 3.02seconds behind.
Reeves said:
‘Finishing in the top six at the TT is no mean feat but, to be honest, I'm really disappointed to have finished fourth. I was really hoping for more today but for some reason the bike was about 8-10mph down on the straights and I was losing so much time, it was very much a damage limitation exercise.’
‘We put the new engine in for Friday night's practice and it felt great so I was really confident coming in to the race and was very hopeful of having a fun ride and getting a top result.’
‘I'm at a bit of a loss to explain why it wasn't performing as well today and it just didn't have any “go”, but at least we got a finish and also managed to post a personal best lap.’
‘I feel there's a lot more to come from me though so we'll just have to dig deep for Wednesday and see what we can do then.’