Fresh from his record-breaking Superstock win at the TT 2018, Peter Hickman made it podium number three on Wednesday when he took second place in the four-lap Supersport race.

Riding the Trooper Triumph by Smiths Racing machine, Hickman was locked in battle with James Hillier for the first half of the race with just fractions of a second separating them at times.

A second lap of 128mph+ helped him edge away from Hillier and with Michael Dunlop picking up a pit lane speeding penalty, Hickman was able to add a second place finish, behind race winner Dean Harrison, to the third he’d notched up in the opening 600cc encounter.

‘Dean and Michael are proper fast on the 600s and the class isn’t my strength but the Triumph works well around the Mountain Course and although it was a bit of a bitch in practice, it was faultless in the races,” Hickman said afterwards.

“I wouldn’t necessarily say I was beaten before I got going, I knew it was going to be a hard race and whilst I ran the harder compound tyres, I don’t think I’d have been much closer with the softer ones.”

“We’ve been blessed with good weather all week and track conditions were great again but I had to dig deep to see off James’ challenge. I kept seeing ‘+0’ on my board so I was beginning to wonder what I had to do to break him but I managed it in the end. Obviously, Michael picked up his penalty which bumped us up a place but it’s fantastic for both myself and the team to get our third podium of the week.”