Sidecar stars will make 2011 TT despite World Championship smash
After escaping serious injury in a racing crash, sidecar stars the Birchall brothers have confirmed they will make their Mountain course return at the 2011 Isle of Man TT fuelled by Monster Energy.
Both were hospitalised after their F1 outfit was involved in a high-speed collision during the weekend’s FIM World Sidecar Championship in Germany.
It was feared Ben had suffered a collapsed lung and broken vertebrae, but after a night in hospital tests showed his lung had re-inflated and there were no fractures.
Ben was discharged from hospital with heavy bruising and, despite the setback, the Mansfield-based brothers are fully focused on their TT return.
The former World Champions made an immediate impact on their debut in 2009, but were forced to sit out the 2010 meeting. Armed with their F2 outfit, the Birchalls intend to be among the front-runners during both Sure Sidecar races at this year’s TT, which gets under way on May 30.
Ben said:
“Luckily we are uninjured and able to race the smaller outfit at the TT races.”
“It would have been a huge disappointment to us and also our sponsors and supporters if we were not able to do this, especially after having to miss the TT last year.”
“We are looking forward to the TT and hoping we can do well this year.”
“We will however miss a couple of rounds of the British F1 championship. We should have been at Brands Hatch this weekend and then on to Knockhill straight after the TT. Brands is definitely out of the question and to get the outfit up and running for the world championship in Croatia we will reluctantly have to give Knockhill a miss as well.”
The Birchall brothers took victory in the opening race at the latest World Sidecar Championship at Schleiz.
In the sprint race on Saturday the Mitchells of Mansfield-supported brothers took pole and settled into fourth position, making their way through to battle with Pekka Paivarinta for the race lead. The pair pulled away from the rest of the field and exchanged places frequently throughout the remainder of the 11 laps.
Ben and Tom finally got ahead and pulled away to take a 3 second win over their Finnish rival and claim 25 championship points.
Race two on Sunday began well for the brothers and they took the lead on lap four.
They extended their lead to over 3 seconds and were looking good to complete a winning double.
However, they came across a back marker who suddenly braked and stopped leaving Ben nowhere to go and unable to avoid the collision.
After a brief stay in hospital, the pair were pronounced fit enough to return home to Mansfield on Monday.
The brothers are in Switzerland with Louis Christian to work on the LCR F1 outfit which suffered extensive damage.
Ben explained:
“The crash was not of our doing. This backmarker decided for some reason to stop right in our path and on the racing line. The crash has caused us a lot of grief and expense and it makes me question why such an inexperienced rider was permitted to compete in the World Championship.”
“We will remain here over the weekend to make some repairs and replace damaged parts to the outfit in order to be up and running again in time for the next round of the series in Croatia at the end of June.”