Isle of Man – British Racer Jimmy Storrar made his Penz13.com BMW Racing Team proud during the practice week of the Tourist Trophy 2014 at the Isle of Man. The BMW S 1000 RR rider battled much further up the rankings than expected.

 

Team mate Dan Kruger from Canada only got limited track time to learn the over 60 kilometres of the Mountain Course.

 

The practice week of this year's TT saw some difficult weather and the Newcomer's practice already had to be postponed due to rain last Saturday. This meant that Kruger missed out some valuable time to get to grips with this difficult track.

Monday and Tuesday saw regular practice sessions whereas on Wednesday again most of the day had to be cancelled due to rain. Thursday didn't come any better - the "big" bikes of the Superbike- and Superstock categories had to stay in the pits as there was mist in the mountains.

 

For Friday organizers decided to increase the Solo-Session to 1.40 hours and that meant some proper track time for all the racers, to tackle the most difficult road racing circuit in the world.

Storrar got to an personal best of 18:12,865 Minutes which meant an average speed of 124,111 miles per hour. With that time he got qualified as 19th placed Superbike rider for Saturday's race - and as incredible 9th for Monday's Superstock TT.

 

Dan Kruger was not able to lap more than 10 times round the Mountain Course, which is not much to learn the over 60 kilometres of this Highspeed circuit. The Canadian is now hoping for more laps on his BMW machinery but admitted he had fun at his first TT appearance so far.

 

This week's best lap time was set by last year's 4 times winner Michael Dunlop on a BMW S 1000 RR in 17:12,901 Minutes (131,501 mph) which is only slightly underneath the lap record (131,8) held by 20 times TT winner John McGuinness.

 

Jimmy Storrar:
"So far I am very happy with my BMW S 1000 RR. The bike worked right out of the gutter. Today we changed the geometry setting a bit and I was able to go even quicker. I am a bit disappointed we got so limited track time this week, but that was the same to everyone. The race is tomorrow only."

 

Dan Kruger:
"I got a bit outpaced by the weather this week and was able to do less laps only. But that would have been the key point - to know, where you have to go here. The bike has been prepared brilliantly, but I can't judge it's potential or even use it as long as I do not really know where to go here. But I had fun so far."