By Six TT wins, thirty-six podium finishes, taking in fine style the six-lap RST Superbike race, it was all the six’s today for man of the moment, Dean Harrison (Honda Racing UK).
As throughout qualifying week, Harrison quickly hit his stride, opening at Glen Helen on lap one, an advantage of 4.8 (4.807 to be exact) seconds.
Twelve seconds clear at lap one’s finalisation, setting the race’s quickest lap (134.892 mph – 16 minutes 46.939 seconds), the Bradford rider now resident on IOM shores, had already, virtually broke the challenge of top chasers, Michael Dunlop MBE and Peter Hickman.
Thirty-three seconds ahead with two laps remaining, factory Honda rider Harrison rolled off his pace a touch in closing laps, going onto finish with a race winning margin of 15.580 seconds.
Hickman making a world-class Mountain Course racing return (8TEN Racing BMW) beat Dunlop MBE to P2, setting on the sixth and final lap a lap-speed in the mid 134 mph range (134.587).
56.781 adrift of Dunlop MBE (MD Racing/Hawk Racing Honda) in third was DAO Racing’s Josh Brookes, who in turn was 19.568 in front of 54 years young John McGuinness MBE, astride a special 30th TT career anniversary liveried Honda.
Ian Hutchinson (Team RST BMW) bested Jamie Coward (Rapid Honda with DriveLife) for sixth by only 1.273 seconds whilst positions eighth-tenth went to Nathan Harrison (H&H Motorcycles Honda), Michael Browne (Caffrey International/Russell Racing Honda) and new ‘130 Mph Club’ member Paul Jordan (Jackson Racing Powered by Prosper2 Honda).
Eleventh to fifteenth were Conor Cummins, Michael Evans, Roadhouse Macau team’s Brian McCormack, SMT Racing’s Rob Hodson and Shaun Anderson (Penz 13.com BMW).
Mark Parrett starting his 99th TT race, retired in the pits at the end of lap one whilst added early contest retirements included David Johnson and Dominic Herbertson.
Post Race Reaction:
Dean Harrison, joining Geoff Duke, Jimmy Guthrie, John Surtees, Chas Birks, and Jim Redman on six TT successes:
“Over the moon, race was pretty-faultless, to be honest.
The bike never missed a beat, got stuck in from the start, got a decent lead and sort-of managed it from there, try and control it the best I could.”
Peter Hickman, moving onto thirty-two TT rostrum finishes:
“To finish a six-lap race around here is hard-work anyway. I wasn’t really sure if I could do it with the fitness of my arm in-particular, it’s been a hard work.
We’ve done a lot of laps but in some respects that wears me out more.
But really, really happy and the fact that we’ve not only finished the race but we finished in second place is pretty unbelievable to be honest and I’m just so happy for BMW, for Monster (Energy), for 8TEN Racing, for all the guys and girls in the team, got a lot of belief in me and the fact that I’ve given them a podium back is phenomenal.”
TT 2026 – RST Superbike Race Result:
1st – Dean Harrison
2nd – Peter Hickman
3rd – Michael Dunlop MBE
4th – Josh Brookes
5th – John McGuinness MBE
6th – Ian Hutchinson
7th – Jamie Coward
8th – Nathan Harrison
9th – Michael Browne
10th – Paul Jordan
11th – Conor Cummins
12th – Michael Evans
13th – Brian McCormack
14th – Rob Hodson
15th – Shaun Anderson
16th – Marcus Simpson
17th – Michael Sweeney
18th – Phil Crowe
19th – Erno Kostamo
20th – Mitch Rees
21st – Julian Trummer
22nd – AJ Venter
23rd – Jamie Cringle
24th – Barry Furber
25th – Kevin Keyes
26th – Maurizio Bottalico
27th – James Chawke
28th – Stefano Bonetti
29th – Paul Williams
30th – Joey Thompson
31st – Michael Russell
32nd – Rhys Hardisty
33rd – Barry Burrell
34th – Tom Weeden
35th – Timothee Monot
36th – Tom Robinson
37th – Stephen Parsons
38th – Ryan Whitehall
39th – Amalric Blanc
40th – Mark Goodings
41st – David Brook
Photo credit: Mark Corlett, Nick Wheeler
Words by Stevie Rial #dontletfearcontrolyou
