Ryan Farquhar 'happy enough' with steady start to the 2012 TT
Ryan Farquhar says he is ‘happy enough’ after a steady start to the 2012 Isle of Man TT fuelled by Monster Energy.
The Dungannon racer has been getting on with the work of dialling his KMR Kawasaki machines into the Mountain course, but has also been leading the way in the Lightweight class.
Farquhar has topped the times in every SuperTwin practice session so far, completing a 115.398mph lap on Tuesday.
His team-mate Jamie Hamilton has made an impressive start to his TT career, the Ballyclare youngster consistently the quickest newcomer.
With Saturday evening's opening practice session being just for the Lightweight machines and newcomers, both Farquhar and Hamilton were able to get some early laps in and Farquhar topped the Lightweight class with a lap of 113.587mph. Monday evening saw the 1000cc machines out on track and with conditions continuing to be perfect, a steady session saw Farquhar lap at 123.871mph with Hamilton increasing his speed to 112.688mph.
On Tuesday evening, despite not being happy with the changes he'd made to the Superbike, Farquhar did increase his speed to 125.197mph and then topped the Lightweight session with a lap of 115.398mph, 23 seconds clear of his nearest rival.
Team-mate Michael Rutter was third quickest at 113.149mph with Hamilton 11th at 109.921mph. Hamilton also improved his Superbike time to 116.564mph. On Wednesday evening, Farquhar went out on his Superstock and Supersport machines for the first time during the week and was immediately on the pace, going 7th and 5th fastest respectively. Meanwhile, Hamilton continued to impress and, again the quickest newcomer on the night, lapped at 118.563mph.
Farquhar said:
“I'm happy enough with how the week has gone so far and practice week is always the same, you're constantly making changes to the bike to make it perform even better. With the course being so long you'll never get the bike set-up 100% and it's more of a compromise for the whole lap but we're getting there.”
“I wasn't happy initially with the Twin on Saturday night, but we made a few changes to it and Tuesday felt a lot better. I was happy with a 115mph+ lap, but there's definitely more to come and with a few more tweaks to the suspension and gearing we should be able to go a fair bit quicker.”
“The Superbike felt pretty good on Monday, but the changes I made for Tuesday's practice were too much so I've gone back to the settings I started with and will just make little adjustments now to get the handling closer to how I want it to be.”
He added:
“Jamie's been going really well and has been building his pace up nicely in each sesson, which is all you can do as a newcomer, you've just got to keep putting in the laps and get the experience.”
“I caught him at Ballagarey on the Twin on Tuesday evening and waved at him to tuck in behind me so, hopefully, he will have learned a few more bits then and he ended the session 11th fastest so it's so far so good - Michael was third fastest too so the Supertwins are all working really well now.”
“I'd also like to welcome on board my new sponsors Vauxhall and I'm extremely grateful for their support and I'm looking forward to working with them for the rest of the year and, hopefully, giving them some good results. Eurocars have also loaned me a car for the fortnight which is also superb and it's nice to be able to get away from the paddock and spend a bit of down time with the family.”