Morning warm-up laps planned on race days at 2020 Isle of Man TT as part of schedule revamp

Morning warm-up laps are set to be introduced on race days at next year’s Isle of Man TT as part of a revamp to the schedule.
By Kyle White
Published 29th Oct 2019, 12:27 BST
A number of changes are planned to the 2020 Isle of Man TT qualifying and race schedule, including warm-up sessions on race day mornings.A number of changes are planned to the 2020 Isle of Man TT qualifying and race schedule, including warm-up sessions on race day mornings.
A number of changes are planned to the 2020 Isle of Man TT qualifying and race schedule, including warm-up sessions on race day mornings.

A new TT race day format will see a single-lap warm-up session held for solo riders, with the first taking place on Saturday, June 6 ahead of the RST Superbike event, which is scheduled to start over six laps at 12 noon. The opening Sidecar TT will take place on the same afternoon from 3pm.

The Monday and Wednesday race days – featuring the two Supersport Races, the RL360 Superstock event and the Bennetts Lightweight Race – will also begin with a solo warm-up session in the morning.

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In a further change, a single lap Sidecar session has been added to the running order on the Wednesday of race week prior to the second Sidecar TT on Senior race day (Friday, June 12).

The 2020 TT Races will also begin a day later than in previous years, with practice commencing on Sunday, May 31 with an afternoon qualifying session.

Evening qualifying sessions will run as before, taking place from Monday, June 1 through to Thursday, June 4.

However, the final TT qualifying session has been moved from Friday evening to a new afternoon slot on June 5. Provisional sessions remain in the schedule on Thursday afternoon, while Friday evening has been set aside for a provisional session.

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The changes are designed to ‘improve spectator entertainment and mitigate the demands that are placed on teams, riders, volunteers including the TT Marshals Association and local residents’.

ACU Events Ltd, organisers of the TT Races, will now submit the revamped programme to the Isle of Man Government Department of Infrastructure for consideration and approval.

The proposed new schedule will be integrated with a new off-track entertainment programme, which will be announced on Saturday, November 16 at Motorcycle Live in Birmingham.

Rob Callister MHK, Political Member with responsibility for tourism and motorsport, said: “The proposed new schedule has been designed to optimise qualifying conditions and offer shorter race days, reducing the pressure placed on competitors, teams, volunteers and officials.

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“This new format is also designed to minimise the impact that racing has on local residents and businesses with more clearly defined road closure schedules including the more definitive first weekend qualifying timetable and cutting the duration of road closures during race week which result in clearer, easier to follow road closure timetables. This will bring benefits to rider, visitors and locals throughout the TT period.”

Related topics:Birmingham