Seven-up for TT star Ryan Farquhar at 2011 season opener
Road racing great Ryan Farquhar, who is aiming to return to the top step of the podium during the 2011 Isle of Man TT fuelled by Monster Energy, got his season under way in the best possible style at the weekend.
The reigning Duke Road Race Rankings champion dominated the Ian Watson Trophy races at Oliver’s Mount, Scarborough, on Sunday. The KMR Kawasaki rider won all seven races he started, including the feature trophy race for the fourth consecutive year.
The meeting was the first round of the 2011 Duke Road Race Rankings, and, as expected, Farquhar has established himself as favourite to win the title for the fourth year in a row.
The Dungannon star has admitted his chief aim in 2011 is victory on a big bike at one of the international meetings, and another win at the TT is top of his list. After securing two podium finishes last year, and coming within seconds of victory, Farquhar is expected to be firmly in the mix as the Mountain course celebrates its centenary.
His form at the 2.43-mile Scarborough circuit has shown he cannot be discounted.
Farquhar’s day started with a comfortable heat win for the feature race and he followed this up with a hard-fought victory in the first leg of the Supersport 600.
Countryman Michael Pearson pushed him in the opening laps, but by mid-race Farquhar had edged away and took the chequered flag at the end of eight laps with a winning margin of 7.1 seconds.
It was a similar story in the first Super Twin race, where the pressure came from Ivan Lintin. Again, Farquhar pulled away to take another comfortable victory, this time by 7.2s.
The opening leg of the Ian Watson Trophy event saw a three-way tussle between Farquhar, Pearson and Derek Shiels.
With the fastest lap of the race, 1m 46.595s, Farquhar opened up an advantage and continued to extend his lead to take victory by just over 4 seconds on the new ZX-10R Kawasaki Superstock machine.
His fifth win of the day came in the second leg of the Supersport 600, again from Pearson, while he also made it a double in the Super Twin event with Lintin again having to settle for second.
That just left the second leg of the Ian Watson Trophy and the first four laps saw very little between Farquhar, Pearson and Shiels. However, Farquhar led all the way and did enough to keep the other two behind. In the second half of the race, he increased his pace to pull over 3 seconds clear and take his seventh win of the day - and his 74th victory at Oliver’s Mount.
Farquhar said:
“It’s been a really good day, although I’m absolutely shattered now! With it being the first race of the season, it takes a while for the muscles to get working again whilst my races were all back-to-back today and I was jumping off one bike straight on to another!”
“It’s been a very worthwhile meeting today and I’ve certainly learned a lot with the new ZX-10R. It was a bit lively over the bumps and crests around the course so we’ve got a bit of work to do with set-up, but we were making changes all day and have found a good direction to work in so I'm confident we’ll get there.”
“I was really happy with how the 600 was working and the improvements that we’ve made to the bike over the winter appear to have moved us forward, so that was very positive although the ultimate test will, of course, come at the likes of the North West 200 and TT.”
“The Super Twin was also working well although I’ve a few changes that I want to make before the Cookstown 100.”
“You can’t expect everything to be 100% right at the very first race, but that’s why they're invaluable as we now know what areas we need to work on and improve in time for the next race.”
“It’s been hard work today with the warm weather, but seven wins from seven starts is the perfect start to the season and I’m really happy with how it’s all gone.”