Isle of Man TT: Birchall brothers take sidecar 2 victory

For the second time at the 2013 Isle of Man TT Races, the Formula Two sidecar event saw debut winners with former World Champions Ben and Tom Birchall leading from start to finish to take their first ever victory around the Mountain Course.

Having been forced to retire from Saturday’s three-lap encounter, the Nottinghamshire brothers made no mistakes this time around and took a 17.3s victory from Dave Molyneux/Patrick Farrance with Conrad Harrison/Mike Aylott having to settle for third on this occasion.

“If that’s what a TT win feels like, then I want some more!” said a delighted Ben immediately afterwards. “It was really difficult leading from the front and I had a few moments on the second lap when I was pushing too hard so I told myself to calm down and wound my neck in on the final lap.

“I kept seeing Dave in the distance so when I couldn’t I pushed hard and when I could I rolled off but to get in the TT winners club is something special.”

The Birchalls signalled their intentions from the start moving into a two-second lead at Glen Helen on the opening lap, first race winners Tim Reeves/Dan Sayle slotting into second with Harrison a further one and half seconds back in third. Molyneux lay in fourth from John Holden/Andy Winkle and Gary Bryan/Jamie Winn.

Circulating ahead of Reeves/Sayle on the roads, the Birchalls extended their lead to 11.5s at Glen Helen second time around but that soon increased when the first race winners were forced to retire at Ballaugh.

Their second lap was their personal best at 114.662 and although Molyneux/Farrance also lapped in excess of 114mph, they were now 16s behind. However, they were a similar distance clear of Harrison/Aylott with the top six remaining the same.

On the final lap, the Birchalls were able to maintain their advantage over Molyneux/Farrance and they took a superb victory thus following in the footsteps of Reeves in adding a TT victory to their World Championship success of 2009.