Dean Harrison bagged victory in the second Supersport outing of TT 2018, crossing the line by almost 19s from Peter Hickman after Michael Dunlop was handed a 30s penalty for speeding in pitlane.
Harrison was never headed in the four-lap middleweight scrap, steadily opening a gap over Dunlop and came into the pits at the end of lap two with a 129.099mph lap. Dunlop was 8.330s behind and changed his rear tyre but messed up the pitlane speed limit, going over by 0.214km/h.
This promoted Peter Hickman to second place but at a huge disadvantage which he eeked into but couldn’t make any serious headway on the Smith’s Trooper Triumph. James Hiller put the JS Speedfit Kawasaki for another podium place.
Harrison got to Ramsey almost three seconds quicker than Dunlop on lap one and set a 128.188mph standing start lap while Hillier fended off a charge from Hickman with Conor Cummins in fifth place but on lap two, Hickman was past the Kawasaki man and into third place.
Dunlop dropped to 4.543s behind Hillier at Glen Helen on lap two and then dropped a second a sector, give or take, as they completed the lap while Hickman slowly pulled away from Hillier, while Lee Johnston and Josh Brookes began to scrap for sixth place.
After Dunlop’s penalty, Harrison could sit back and enjoy an 18s lead which he stretched to 20s at Ballaugh but then at the end of lap three, it was back to 19.524 as Dunlop trailed Cummins in fifth place by 8.593s.
Brookes passed Johnston for sixth place and got the hammer down to pull away while Harrison took over as leader on the road as they came into Ramsey on the final lap. The order didn’t change and Harrison ended with a 19.662 advantage.
Cummins secured fourth ahead of Dunlop who had cut the gap to six seconds at Ramsey but knocked it off and came home with a similar deficit to the Ramsey man.
Brookes brought the McAMS Yamaha home with an 14-second lead over Johnston with Gary Johnson in eighth after Derek McGee retired after Glen Helen. James Cowton bagged ninth place with Ivan Lintin in tenth.
Ian Hutchinson, Davey Todd, Sam West, Dominic Herbertson and Dan Cooper completed the top 15.
