‘I WANTED TO DO SOMETHING FOR DAN IN THAT RACE’
Dunlop dedicates victory to tragic team-mate Kneen
Michael Dunlop claimed his 16th TT win in Saturday’s Superbike race and dedicated the victory to his Tyco BMW team-mate, Dan Kneen, who was fatally injured in a crash during practice.
“It’s been a hard week and I wanted to do something for Dan in that race,” explained Dunlop. “None of us can say or do anything that will make it any better but that win is for the family and that’s all I can say.” Dunlop inherited the lead of the six-lap Superbike race after early leader Dean Harrison retired with a broken clutch on his Silicone Kawasaki on lap four.
With another of the pre-race favourites, Peter Hickman, having retired at the end of the opening lap on his misfiring Smith’s BMW, the first encounter of TT 2018 developed into the anticipated two-man battle following Harrison and Dunlop’s dominance during practice week. Having watched Harrison unofficially smash his outright lap record during the opening night of superbike practice, Dunlop said he’d not been surprised by the Kawasaki rider’s pace from the outset of the Superbike race. “Dean has been riding fantastic this week and he was riding well last year so it’s not a shock,” the Ulsterman said.
Harrison started ten seconds in front of Dunlop and two recordbreaking opening laps over 134mph, including a new outright Mountain course record of 134.432mph, gave the Bradford man a lead of 18 seconds.
A hard-charging Dunlop, who was riding his first TT race on the Tyco BMW, began to close that gap on the third circuit as Harrison’s clutch started to slip.
“It just took me a minute or two to get settled,” the 29-year-old explained.
“I seemed to struggle on the first two laps and then on the third I started to dig deep and got my rhythm back again. I made a big charge and once I saw Dean go out I backed the charge off again.” With Harrison sidelined, Dunlop romped home to win by over 50 seconds from Conor Cummins (Padgett’s Honda) and James Hillier (Quattro Plant/ JG Speedfit Kawasaki). Although full of praise for his Tyco BMW team, the Ballymoney man admitted his delay in sorting a deal with the Northern Ireland based team had hindered his TT challenge.
“Testing has been limited and a wee bit more time would have been nice,” he said.
“We have redirected the bike completely from the North West 200 and the boys haven’t stopped working. I haven’t helped either, by looking to change this, that and the other to get a bike that I feel comfortable with. We are still a bit away from that but we can make the job work.”
With Harrison now alongside him in the sub-17 minute club, Dunlop knows he is going to have a fight on his hands when he goes into the Senior race on Friday. But he’s also confident that he can up his own game, especially as he has yet to lap as fast on the Tyco BMW as he did when he won the Senior TT on the Hawk S1000RR in 2016. “Sub-17s are where it is at,” Dunlop told MCN. “So do I think there is a 135 in me? Very much so. Today we had our issues and I came back fighting on lap three. I just need to up my pace. We will work hard this week and push for the Senior.”