'Bingley Bullet' tops Superbike qualifying after two timed sessions
Paul Bird Motorsport Kawasaki's Ian Hutchinson was the first rider to crack the 130mph mark as he topped Wednesday night’s qualifying session with a time of 17:22.700 - 130.266mph - in near perfect conditions.
It’s the first time Hutchy’s lapped the Mountain Course over 130mph since 2010 when he made history with five TT wins in one week.
In September of that year he suffered a serious leg injury while racing at Silverstone and intervening years have seen a fight back to full fitness, including several rounds of major bone grafts and intensive physiotherapy.
The ‘Bingley Bullet’ was joined at the top of the qualifying table by the first man to ever lap the TT course in excess of 130mph.
At 130.030mph Honda Racing’s John McGuinness is currently the only other rider to have achieved the feat at TT 2015, although Bruce Anstey, riding for Valvoline Racing by Padgett’s Motorcycles only missed out by the narrowest of margins.
Anstey’s 129.957mph could have been faster but he ran into traffic on the run over the Mountain which slowed the current absolute lap record holder. New Zealand’s fastest road racer professed himself happy with the performance at the close of the session, emphasising that he’d been concentrating on looking for smooth lines rather than top speeds.
The next three places on the current superbike qualifying leaderboard are occupied by BMW-mounted riders with Tyco BMW’s William Dunlop holding fourth place, just ahead of team mate Guy Martin and Batham’s Michael Rutter in sixth.
John McGuinness’s Honda team mate Conor Cummins fills the next position on the sheet, a couple of seconds down on Rutter with a best lap of 128.331mph.
Jamie Hamilton, riding for the Cookstown BE team, is the leading Suzuki pilot on the chart at 127.752 and Gary Johnson is the only rider in the top ten at the present who went faster on Wednesday than Thursday.
Rounding out the ten fastest current riders is Dean Harrison who has taken the Mar-Train Yamaha R1 to 127.120mph.
Outside of the leaders there have been a number of other impressive results including a lap at over 125mph for Alan Bonner on thepeoplesbike.com entry and 124.017mph mph for Cameron Donald and the Norton SG4.
With no laps on his newly arrived BMW Superbike Michael Dunlop does not currently trouble the top ten but his fastest superstock lap at 129.659mph would place him fourth in the superbike rankings.
Full Qualifying results can be accessed here:
