Hutchinson Wins Superbike Race at Isle of Man TT

Ian Hutchinson took his 15th victory at the Isle of Man TT races fuelled by Monster Energy when he took a thrilling RST Superbike race on Sunday afternoon by five seconds from Peter Hickman, after Hickman had closed the gap down to 1.6s on the final lap.

Hutchinson’s final run over the Mountain on the Tyco BMW saw him edge clear from Hickman’s Smiths Racing machine, who claimed his maiden TT podium, with early race leader Dean Harrison taking third.

After a day’s delay due to foul weather during practice week, the RST Superbike Race was off at 2:00 with David Johnson wearing no. 1, started the day, followed by Bruce Anstey, James Hillier and Ian Hutchinson. After a 20 second gap to due to John McGuiness’s absence, race favorite Michael Dunlop was off.

Dunlop’s first lap was over 131 mph from a standing start was a great start to his day, however he had to pull off on lap 2.

Early on the third lap, the leaderboard read Harrison, Hutchinson, Hickman and Hillier as Kneen dropped back to ninth and Cummins 17th and that meant David Johnson moved up to fifth on the Norton and Michael Rutter sixth.

By half race distance, Hutchinson led for the first time but only by 0.4s and only 10.5 seconds covered the top four with Hickman and Hillier holding station in third and fourth.

Going into the final lap, Hutchinson still led but the gap to Hickman was only 7.9s at Glen Helen and by Ballaugh it was only 2.5s. Harrison was now in third as Hillier experienced fuel problems and the thrilling race still saw just 9.5s split the top four.