The zero emission electric bikes are preparing for today’s SES TT Zero at the 2016 Isle of Man TT Races fuelled by Monster Energy and the Mugen outfit, winners of the SES TT Zero in 2014 and 2015 with John McGuinness, will again be the team to beat.

The Japanese based team and Morecambe rider John McGuinness shattered their own lap record with a time of 119.279 (18:58.743) and already speculation is turning to the first 120mph lap in the class. McGuinness’s closest challenger is expected to be teammate Bruce Anstey and the New Zealander will be looking to improve on his own runner up spot in last year’s race.

However the Mugen pair can expect close competition from a number of teams in this year’s SES TT Zero Race including Victory Racing. William Dunlop will be representing the American based team who will campaign their all-new Victory RR machine and the team managed to clock an impressive 115mph in qualifying.

Belgian outfit Sarolea returns with a two-man outfit with Bradford’s Dean Harrison joining Northern Ireland rider Lee Johnston, who finished on the podium in last year’s race, for their third year of competing in the race. The team finished an agonising 0.4 seconds off the podium in their debut year in 2014 and broke the 100mph barrier in 2015 with a lap of 106.510mph. This year’s effort will see them run their new SP7 machine, which has been under wraps so far in qualifying, in two different colours.

Timothee Monet completes the international flavour of the field with the French rider on the Lito for the TMR team.

The battle of the University teams is expected to be a race within a race with perennial challengers Nottingham University running two riders – Rob Barber, the 2009 TTxGP winner and Daley Mathison – on their UoN Electric 1 machines while Matthew Rees will ride for debut outfit University of Bath, whose engineering team are behind the Odin machine. Shaun Anderson is competing for the Custom Build team from Kingston University while South African Allan Venter is representing Brunel.

As a tribute to Michael Czysz, the electric motorcycle pioneer whose MotoCzysz outfit won four consecutive races between 2010 and 2013, all of the competing bikes will wear a MotoCzysz decal.

The SES TT Zero will get underway at 4.10pm (GMT). You can follow all the action via live timing on iomtt.com