Up until that point, the duo had been enjoying a strong TT campaign despite inclement weather limiting practice time around the Mountain Course. Monday and Tuesday saw both of their sessions cancelled but with good weather on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evenings, they were able to post some strong lap times and a speed of 113.966mph on Thursday placed them third on the overall leaderboard.
With some further changes made to the outfit in readiness for Monday's race, Tim and Patrick were confident going into the three lap encounter but problems prior to the start gave them a frantic final few minutes. It was clear all was not well when they left the line and this was shown when they went through Glen Helen, the first timing point, in fifth place. Sure enough, they were soon reported as having retired at Barregarrow with the problem later traced to the ECU failing.
Speaking afterwards, Tim said: "Practice had been a bit up and down due to the lack of track of time but it was the same for everyone and we'd had a reasonable run. We had a few little problems and our best lap would have been a lot better had it not been for a slight fuelling issue coming down the Mountain. Our sector times were excellent though so I felt confident of lapping a lot quicker in the race but just before the start the bike wouldn't start and we only had a couple of minutes to get ready."
"We managed to bump start the bike so I kept the engine running but off the line it didn't feel right. I rode as hard as I could to Glen Helen but we were down in fifth and had lost a lot of time so it was clear all wasn't well. Coming towards Handley's, the bike started to slow up, like as if the engine had blown so I pulled in at Barregarrow. When we got the bike back, we took a look and it was the ECU that had failed, just a simple electronic problem that no one could have foreseen. It's just one of those things but we know what it is and have another chance on Wednesday so we'll be going all out to get a result then."
The team have another bite of the cherry with the second race due to get underway at 2.15pm on Wednesday afternoon.
