Having unofficially broken the Superbike and Supertwin lap records during practice week, the enigmatic Ulsterman put the hammer down in Saturday’s festival opening four-lap Supersport outing, setting a 128.305mph opening lap on his Yamaha R6 and managing his advantage to take his 22nd career win around the 37.73 mile course. Peter Hickman overhauled Dean Harrison for second on the final lap, bringing his Triumph home some 12 seconds behind the winner.
It was more of the same in Sunday’s six-lap Superbike TT, with Dunlop laying down his marker early on – with Harrison and Hickman again completing the podium. ‘Mickey D’ set a new Superbike lap record on his Hawk Racing Honda Fireblade on the first lap, taking the win by 8.233 seconds from Hickman, who set the fastest lap of the race, at 135.445mph, to once again overhaul Harrison on the final lap, despite some braking issues and having a problem with the quickshifter on his FHO Racing BMW M 1000 RR. Dunlop’s Superbike win moves him into joint second place, with John McGuinness, and just three behind his uncle, the late, great Joey Dunlop, in the all-time TT winners list.
“It was a good race,” an emotional Dunlop said after the race. “There were some yellow flags out and I rolled off a bit at the end, but I was able to control it. It was good to win on the big bike again and I have to give credit to my Hawk Racing team for believing in me. We’re a private team and they’ve given me a great bike. I’ve never really worried about the records. It’s nice to equal John (McGuinness). He’s a fantastic ambassador for the sport and it certainly never gets any easier. I’ve raced against John and Hutchy (Ian Hutchinson) in their prime and now Peter and Dean. I just want to keep riding hard and enjoying it.”
Debriefing his race, Hickman added: “Sometimes the quickshifter worked, but not very often, so it was going to be a tough race. Right at the start we were beaten really, as far as winning the race was concerned, and we had the next problem, which was that I’ve got no brakes. There is so much headshaking here, that it knocks the brake pads back. It is so violent over the bumps, and every time I went for the brakes there was nothing. That was unnerving and made it super difficult to be fast. It’s not for the want of trying, it’s just simply the way it goes sometimes. We’ve tried a everything and the bike keeps doing the same thing. We don’t really know why, but we’ll be back.”
There was more history made in the opening Sidecar TT, when the Birchall brothers, Ben and Tom, took their 11th successive TT victory and became the first crew to record a 120mph average lap. It was the 13th TT win for the Midlanders, who had a 24 second advantage over the Peter Founds/Jevan Walmsley crew at the end of the three-lap race.
The 2023 Isle of Man TT Races now takes a one day break, before action resumes tomorrow (Tuesday June 6) when the first RL360 Superstock TT and Carole Nash Supertwin TTs take centre stage. Dunlop will be lining up in both events, as he looks to continue his unbeaten run at this year’s races.
