TT ZERO 2015 will have Mugen, Victory, Sarolea, U Nottingham, Brunel Univ

Ahead of tomorrows TT ZERO race, the final 2015 TT ZERO qualifying was held today.  Thanks to Mugen not participating today, the grid had only seven bikes with the Victory Motorcycle bikes coming in fastest with a 110 miles/hr lap for Lee Johnston, and a 108 miles/hr lap for Guy Martin.  Robert Wilson & Sarolea has found a bit more speed, finishing with a 101 miles/hr lap speed after yesterday’s 96 miles/hr run.  That makes Sarolea to be the fourth team to break the ton in the TT ZERO.

UPDATE: Race results have been posted

Given that in yesterday’s qualifying the Victory bikes had a hard time finishing (Lee Johnston was filmed crawling at Cronk-ny-Mona and having to hop off and push the bike over the crest of a hill), the big question is whether the team worked out the issue so they can run at a decent pace the whole race.  Going by these numbers, both Johnston and Martin were having a fast lap at the Bungalow (117 and 115 miles/hr respectively), at the Grandstand they were clocked at a hefty speed (127 and 118 miles/hr respectively).  It seems the Victory Motorcycles performance didn’t drop off as badly at the end of the lap today as yesterday.

Mugen did not run in today’s qualifying.  Manx Radio explained they’d talked with someone from the team who explained they felt the qualifying race was too close in time to the actual race.  Due to the time required to cool down and recharge the pack, they elected to not run.

According to a Tyco BMW press release, William Dunlop has withdrawn completely from TT2015 due to injuries during the Superstock qualifying session on Monday.  He broke a rib and is severely bruised.

Hence, we know the list of qualified bikes for the 2015 TT ZERO.  In the likely order of finishing tomorrow:

1. John McGuinness – Mugen
2. Bruce Anstey – Mugen
3. Lee Johnston – Brammo (a.k.a. Victory – the results thingy is obviously not correct)
4. Guy Martin – Victory (standing in for William Dunlop)
5. Robert Wilson – Sarolea
6. Michael Sweeny – U Nottingham
7. James Cowton – Brunel

The Kingston Univ team, despite having participated in TTXGP/TT ZERO since 2009, was unable to qualify this time around.  The main wild cards I see are if Sarolea and Nottingham were to unlock some more speed.

Nottingham has a Parker motor that, having looked at their Facebook status updates, appears to be similar to the motor Victory has on their bikes.  Hence, Nottingham should be able to turn in a 100 miles/hr lap speed, if they can get everything sorted out in time.

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About David Herron

David Herron is a writer and software engineer living in Silicon Valley. He primarily writes about electric vehicles, clean energy systems, climate change, peak oil and related issues. When not writing he indulges in software projects and is sometimes employed as a software engineer. David has written for sites like PlugInCars and TorqueNews, and worked for companies like Sun Microsystems and Yahoo.

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