Michael Dunlop is all smiles after his record breaking win in the Superbike TT.
John McGuinness at Union Mills.
Ian Hutchinson couldn’t match the blistering pace of Michael Dunlop and had to settle for second place.
It’s Saturday morning on the Isle of Man, and the Superbike TT is only 50 minutes away as I write this final practice update. What a week! The weather has been amazing on the Isle of Man. The track is in perfect condition and the riders are ready to go.
I commented to my friend Steve English yesterday evening that we would probably see the riders take it easy in Friday evening’s practice session. They’d had so much practice that surely they didn’t need to push. How wrong I was.
Ian Hutchinson went out on his Superstock BMW and unofficially broke the outright lap record at 132.8mph. An incredible time!
Anyway, enough talking, on with the photos, which were taken during Thursday and Friday’s practice sessions at a mixture of the paddock, St. Ninian’s Crossroads, and Lambfell/Cronk-y-Voddy.
After a glorious Tuesday evening practice, the weather was looking decidedly gloomy before this evening’s session. Due to an abundance of cloud cover and impending showers, I can honestly say that my decision to shoot from Lezayre wasn’t the best idea I’ve had so far this TT.
Unfortunately the session was stopped, after most riders had only managed a solitary lap, due to an incident at the top of Barregarrow. Combined with the failing light and ever-heavier rain showers on the Northerly sections of the circuit (including myself at Lezayre) the Clerk of the Course cancelled all sessions this evening.
Due to a lack of racing action I will leave you all with a few sights from around the paddock today, and hopes for better weather (and light) for tomorrow’s practice.
Photo: Ducati Corse
A lot of people don’t realize that during the racing season MotoGP takes on the role of a small moving city. Hopping from venue to venue and setting up camp where they land, GP teams are perhaps the more modern take on the traveling circus business model, erecting hospitality structures, team offices, rider amenities, and of course the team garage, all in the name of the big show.
Stick around the race track after a Sunday race, and you’ll see GP teams breakdown the paddock and hospitality amenities in a matter of hours, stuffing the building and bike components into container crates. Those crates in-turn are packed onto team trucks, or loaded onto Dorna’s airplanes, so that MotoGP can travel to its next venue, and start the process over anew. Rinse & repeat 18 times, and you’ve got yourself a GP season.
Compressing the hours of work it takes to setup and takedown the team garage, Rizla Suzuki, with the help of Troy Lee Designs, put together a time lapse videos showing the process. Enjoy it and a bonus video of the Rizla garage during race day after the jump.
After debuting the 2010 Fiat-Yamaha MotoGP team and the new(ish) YZR-M1, news came out that the Fiat-Yamaha team, like many other teams before them, will not be sharing data between its two riders, effectively erecting a wall in the Fiat-Yamaha garage. The news was confirmed by Masahiko Nakajima, MotoGP Group Leader and Fiat Yamaha Team Director, that there will be no sharing of data between the two riders this year as they battle for the MotoGP Championship once again. The issue has already made its first divide, as Lorenzo and Rossi have expressed very different sentiments on the topic.
Yamaha Tech 3 team have erected a wall dividing the garages of Colin Edwards from that of James Toseland. As we reported earlier in the year (), the two riders had a falling out after swap in crew chiefs occurred. Following the conclusion of the 2008 MotoGP season, James Toseland was granted Colin Edwards’ crew chief Gary Reynders, an incident that Edwards was opposed to and has stopped the teammates from working together.