Despite leading at numerous times during yesterday's Superbike TT race, Dean Harrison didn't believe the signals he was getting around the Mountain Course, mainly due to having had numerous issues during practice week.

That meant he had to use a Superstock-spec engine for the race instead of his full blown Superbike yet he was in contention for the race win throughout.

The Silicone Engineering Kawasaki rider broke down in a number of practice sessions including get stuck on the Mountain twice and also at Ballagarey but aided by a near 131mph standing start lap he led James Hillier by 5.5s at the end of the second lap. And although he slipped back to fourth at one stage, he fought back to claim third and his seventh TT podium.

"Practice week certainly wasn't the greatest and with a few technical issues I spent a bit of time spectating on the Mountain so we built the bike as best we could," he told bikesportnews.com.

"We had to run a Superstock engine again and it had only been run on the dyno before the race so when I saw 'P1' on my pitboards, I thought someone was winding me up! From half race distance onwards I started to have a few problems and I lost a bit of time in the pits so will have to give the boys a kick up the arse for the other races!"

Starting at number nine, Harrison also said that he lost his rhythm after being distracted by the aftermath of an incident at Greeba Castle.

"When I went through the scene of the crash at Greeba, for some reason I looked at what was going on, which you should never do and I thought about it for a good few miles afterwards. It took me a while to get back into my rhythm after that and I ended up missing a few apexes through Glen Helen. I started to get frustrated with myself but eventually got settled back into it and I'm over the moon with third."