Peter Hickman’s sparkling form at the Ulster Grand Prix continued on Thursday evening when he not only won the Dundrod 150 Superbike race but also smashed the outright lap record for the 7.4-mile circuit with a speed of 134.210mph.
The Smiths Racing BMW rider led from the start and once he saw off the challenge of Bruce Anstey (Padgetts Honda) in the first two laps, he pulled clear with his lead at one stage close to four seconds. The Kiwi dropped back to fourth but regrouped to take third as Dean Harrison (Silicone Engineering Kawasaki) grabbed second on the final lap.
“It’s great to start with a race win and mega to break the outright lap record so early in proceedings especially as I did it all by myself with no slipstream to help me,” said Hickman, speaking in parc ferme.
“It’s hard to break away around here but I thought if I could get my head down in the first couple of laps, I might be able to do that and the race went to plan. I had a near four-second lead at one point so was able to manage the race in the last two laps.
“It’s been faultless so far and to be fastest in every class is testament to the work being done by the whole Smiths Racing team. All of the bikes are working really well which obviously makes my life that bit easier. It helps having the weather on our side and the course is in great shape so full credit to the organisers.
“I thought the lap record would go and there’s definitely still more to come, not just from myself either. I did 134.2 all on my own so if there’s a group of us battling and slipstreaming each other it could go a bit higher yet. It's great to be the fastest road racer in the world - for two days at least.”
At the end of lap one, Hickman led Conor Cummins by 0.225s with Harrison, Anstey, Dan Kneen and Michael Dunlop in hit pursuit as less than two seconds covered the sextet. Second time around and Hickman still led but Anstey, having lapped at 133.987mph was up to second as team-mate Cummins dropped out.
However, Hickman put the hammer down on lap three and smashed the outright lap record to extend his lead over Anstey by 2.3s. Harrison still occupied third but Kneen was closing in on the Tyco BMW and pulling away from Dunlop.
Indeed, on the fourth lap Kneen moved ahead of Anstey to take second but Hickman has pulled further clear with his advantage now 3.7s. The battle for second looked like it would go all the way though as just half a second split Kneen, Anstey and Harrison.
Hickman was able to cruise across the line at the end of the six laps, his eventual winning margin being 1.943s and it was Harrison who moved up the order on the final lap going from fourth to second. Anstey finished third with Kneen slipping back to fourth.
Dunlop was fifth, albeit only 3.3s adrift of Hickman, as Lee Johnston just got the better of Derek Sheils and David Johnson for sixth. Daley Mathison had a lonely ride into ninth with Dan Cooper taking a good tenth.
