Farquhar satisfied for now, says more to come

It's a case of so far, so good for Northern Ireland's Ryan Farquhar during practice for the 2012 Isle of Man TT races this week. The KMR Kawasaki team owner and rider has set the fastest lap in the new Lightweight Supertwin class on his ER6 machine at 115.398mph – 23 seconds clear of his closest rival, James Hillier. The Ulsterman has also lapped at 125.197mph on his Kawasaki superbike and 121.246mph after riding his ZX-6R for the first time this week on Wednesday. “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,” he said. “With the course being so long you'll never get the bike set-up 100 per cent 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,” he added. “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.” Newcomer and KMR rider Jamie Hamilton has been impressing with his times on the Island, completing his fastest lap so far at 118mph on Wednesday and team boss Farquhar is delighted with the young Northern Ireland rider's progress. “Jamie's been going really well and has been building his pace up nicely in each session, which is all you can do as a newcomer – you've just got to keep putting in the laps and get the experience,” he said. “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 Rutter is also riding for Farquhar's team at the TT in the Lightweight class. Farquhar has received a boost at the TT after welcoming Vauxhall on board as a new sponsor.