Ice Valley BMW's Simon Andrews, who appears to have forgotten he is a newcomer at this year's Isle of Man TT Festival, busted through the magic 120mph mark in final practice this evening depsite fighting a gearbox that doesn't like fifth gear very much.

Andrews lapped in 121.436mph making him by far the fastest rookie and said he would have gone faster save for mechanical trouble which meant he had to cruise back to the grandstand all the way from Handley's, which is 'scary in itself'.

"It was an easy lap really as the bike is handling really well, not that I know what a bike is supposed to handle like around here. I've got a cold and I went out on the first lap not really focussing, so I came back in, sat down for five minutes and then went back out," said Andrews, speaking to bikesportnews.com while doing something that sounded nefarious.

"I didn't have any problems on the fast lap except for the recurring gearbox problem. It won't change down from sixth to fifth very easily and that's not much fun at Ballagarey, I ran into it in a false neutral today.

"I'm getting my head down now and hopefully this cold will have abated slightly by the morning. It looks like it will be sunny so I can have a cruise round and enjoy myself."