More bad weather threatens Isle of Man TT race week changes

Heavy rain and mist have blighted much of practice week and four days of running have been lost to the weather.

The lack of practice time this week has forced the ACU to postpone the opening race day to Sunday to allow for more practice time on Saturday.

Further contingency plans have been put in place which would lead to race week being condensed to four days from Tuesday to Friday, with Monday reserved for practice.

Clerk of the Course Gary Thompson confirmed on Thursday this plan would be initiated should no more running be held between now and the first races.

But on Friday, In a bid to make up for lost track time ahead of race week, TT organisers the ACU scheduled two lots of sessions for the solos and Sidecars.

A combined Superbike/Superstock/Supersport/Newcomers session was due at 1.30pm local time, with a combined SSP/Lightweight and a Sidecar outing to follow.

However, the weather failed to relent on Friday morning and forced an hour delay that was converted into cancellation.

This evening's running still remains on the schedule but forecasts do not predict a break in the rain.

Friday evening's running is set for 6.20pm, with the combined SBK/STK/SSP/Newcomers session up first, with an outing for the Sidecars set for 7.55pm and a lap for the electric Zero TT bikes at 8.40pm.

Dean Harrison led the only SBK session of the week so far on Tuesday night, after guiding his Silicone Engineering Kawasaki to a 17m28.610s at 129.53mph.

He also set the pace in the STK classifications on Tuesday, while his SSP lap from Sunday still stands as the fastest overall, with Peter Hickman fastest in the class on Tuesday.