Ryan Farquhar took his second successive podium finish at the 2012 Isle of Man TT races on Wednesday when he finished in a fantastic third place in the 4-lap Supersport race.
The KMR Kawasaki rider had a race long battle with the Padgetts Honda duo of Bruce Anstey and John McGuinness and it was Ryan who prevailed with his margin over Anstey just 0.01s after 150 miles of hard racing over the Mountain Course.
Having been scheduled to get underway at 10.45am, weather problems resulted in a number of changes to the day's programme and it was 6.25pm when the 4-lap race finally started but when it did, the Island was blessed with clear blue skies and warm sunshine although a number of damp patches did remain. Starting at number two again, a solid first lap of 122.049mph placed Ryan in fifth place but with a quicker lap of 124.356mph second time around, he closed to within three seconds of fourth placed John McGuinness. On the third lap, Ryan was overtaken on the road by Cameron Donald and the duo then caught McGuinness, and such was their pace, Ryan was now elevated to third.
The trio circulated in close formation for the final 37.73-miles but Ryan had to race hard right up until the very end as there was never more than a second between him and new fourth placed rider Bruce Anstey. Ryan overtook Donald on the road, making a final charge to the chequered flag and with his fastest ever lap on a 600cc machine at the TT - 124.928mph - he held on to his podium place, his 12th at the TT in total.
Speaking later, a delighted Ryan said; "I certainly wasn't expecting a podium in the Supersport class at this year's TT so be sitting here now in third place is absolutely brilliant. The race was going well and I would certainly have been happy with fifth but I could see from my signals that it was close between Bruce, John and myself so I kept pushing as hard as I could. When Cameron came past, I got into his slipstream and it towed me along a fair bit. I was having to take some wider, sweeping lines just to stay with him but it was great fun and Cameron never put a wheel wrong - he was as safe as houses and I could have ridden with him like that all day. Towards the end of the final lap, I could see how close it was for the final podium spot so I got by him and just rode as hard as I could over the final few miles. One hundredth of a second was ridiculously close but I'm delighted that it went in my favour on this occasion. I've got two more races to go so let's hope the week ends on a high note."
Ryan has two races on Friday with the 3-lap Lightweight race giving him a great opportunity of success on the ER6 Kawasaki, especially as he was quickest in practice. He'll also be in action in the 6-lap Senior race.
Picture: Pacemaker Press International
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