Peter Hickman claimed his 14th TT win during a dramatic RST Superbike TT Race at the Isle of Man TT Races, matching Mike Hailwood’s tally. The Monster Energy BMW by FHO Racing rider taking the lead on the final lap to win by 5.84 seconds from Davey Todd (Milwaukee BMW) with Dean Harrison (Honda Racing) in third.
It was one of the most thrilling races of recent times as Michael Dunlop (MasterMac by Hawk/MD Racing Honda) originally led by twenty-five seconds at two-thirds race distance only to have an issue with the sidepod on his visor leaving the pits after his second stop – this resulted in him stopping on Bray Hill, which dropped him down to fourth.
Things where looking good for Michael as he was on course to beat his Uncle Joey’s TT record of 26 wins. A second lap of 135.543mph saw him move nine seconds clear.
Dunlop was extending his lead through every timing point and at half race distance, he’d pulled 17.3 seconds clear of Todd with Hickman now four seconds adrift of his fellow BMW rider.
However, drama followed after Dunlop left the pits as his new visor hadn’t clipped in correctly and he stopped down Bray Hill losing valuable time to fix it – when he got to Glen Helen for the penultimate time, he’d dropped to fourth with Harrison in the lead! Hickman was only 1.1 second behind Harrison though with Todd ten seconds adrift in third.
Having been in the position before though, Hickman tightened his grip of the race throughout the lap and final lap speed of 135.534mph gave him a 5.8 second victory over Todd with Harrison completing the podium in third. Dunlop was left to wonder what might have been in fourth with his only consolation being a new Superbike lap record of 135.970mph.
The battle for fifth went all the way to the end with Hillier coming out on top, 2.8 second ahead of McGuinness with Coward only 0.2s behind his fellow Honda rider. The top ten was completed by INCompetition Aprilia’s Browne, Michael Rutter (Bathams Ales BMW) and Brian McCormack (Roadhouse Macau by FHO BMW).
Starting the final lap it had changed again with Hickman now leading Harrison by two seconds with Todd, who’d taken the best Ballaugh-Ramsey sector time off Dunlop, well in touch and only 4.7 seconds back, which set it all up for a thrilling final 37.73 miles.
