Michael Dunlop edged ever closer to becoming the greatest rider in the history of the Isle of Man TT Races with his 24th victory coming in Tuesday evening’s opening Supertwin race.
A clear favourite after breaking his own class lap record in practice, Dunlop led from start to finish to make it a hat-trick for the week and move just two behind uncle Joey but admitted it wasn’t as easy as it looked.
"It was a weird race,” he said afterwards. “We’d had issues with the bike during qualifying but Andrea and Lorenzo from SC Project Corse flew over and helped tremendously but I had to nurse the wee bike throughout the three laps and go as easy as I could.”
“It’s the race I’ve been nervous about, but I was gentle with the bike and she ran beautiful. I caught Jamie (Coward) who was riding really well but once I got by him and had clear road, I could just do my own thing.”
Earlier in the day, Dunlop suffered his first defeat of the week when he finished second to Peter Hickman in the first Superstock race and once he’d lost the lead halfway round the opening lap, second was the best he could hope for on his MD Racing Honda.
“I’ve no excuses as there’s no point making them up,” he said. “I didn’t get the most out of the package and the bike felt nervous; it was quite hard work but that’s the way it goes sometimes and it’s feedback for the lads to try and improve the bike for the second race later in the week. I’ve no complaints, Pete (Hickman) rode well, simple as that.”
