Isle of Man TT Races boss Gary Thompson says racing is ‘likely’ to take place this Sunday afternoon, as the TT 2026 schedule continues to be impacted by bad weather.
Last week’s qualifying practice took place in glorious sunshine, but the weather changed and led to the cancellation of Saturday’s opening Monster Energy Supersport TT. Sunday’s six-lap RST Superbike TT took place as planned, but rain has battered the island since and, with the forecast not looking great for much of the remainder of the week, Clerk of the Course Thompson has announced that he could well use Sunday’s contingency slot to complete as much of the racing as possible.
The TT is due to close with Saturday’s Milwaukee Senior TT, a race that was cancelled due to bad weather last year. The option to race on Sunday has been a possibility for some years now, with the Isle of Man Government approving the closed roads order required to go racing, but logistics mean that it’s been almost impossible to take advantage of.
The TT requires hundreds of marshals and officials, as well as the teams and riders, to be able to go ahead and they are usually heading home on the Saturday night and Sunday morning. By putting the paddock on notice, the Clerk of the Course will be hoping that people will be able to change their plans and make the racing happen.
Explaining the situation, Thompson said: “We’ve had some inclement weather yesterday and more disruption today, and the likelihood is that we’re going to have more weather disruption over the next couple of days. It’s frustrating for everyone but we can’t help the weather. The primary thing for me is rider safety and obviously we'll only put the riders out in the best possible conditions. We've got this inclement period of weather now but, looking towards the end of the week, the use of the contingency on Sunday afternoon is becoming more likely.
“Although it's not confirmed yet, I think we all have to be realistic and have it in the back of our minds that we're likely to be racing on Sunday afternoon. It's down to me to get all race programme in, and we're going to do that the best we can, but that's only if the conditions are suitable to put the riders out. Safety is absolutely paramount.”
Despite the cancellation of the two Sidecar TTs theoretically freeing up some space in the race schedule, the weather situation is making it difficult to fit in all the racing. TTs only take place in fair weather on safety grounds and, after a day of rain on yesterday’s rest day, and initial schedule announcing three three-lap TTs for today was announced.
With heavy overnight rain ruling out track action in the morning, and rain forecast for the evening, the decision was made to run a four-lap Supersport TT at 2pm in the afternoon, with the first Carole Nash Sportbike TT and RL360 Superstock TTs postponed. This was put back a further hour, and cut down to a three-lap race to fit into the weather and road closure window, with rescheduling of the Sportbike and Superstock TTs still to be announced.
