Dean Harrison had to give second best to Peter Hickman in Friday's Senior TT race but after leading for five and a half of the six laps, the Silicone Engineering Kawasaki rider wasn't too downbeat about finishing second - or about losing his outright lap record which stood for just six days.
As had been the trend all week, Harrison proved the fastest on the first lap, with a speed of 133.678mph giving him a slender 1.4s lead, and as the race wore on, it was clear he was the superior rider over the first half of the course. His lead continued to increase from the startline to Ramsey only for Hickman to reel him back over the Mountain.
Harrison's lead was as high as 6.2s at one stage but it wasn't enough to stave off the flying Hickman and despite recording his own personal best lap on the final 37.73 miles of TT2018, 134.918mph, Hickman's new outright lap record of 135.452mph meant he missed out on the win by an agonising two seconds.
"What can I say, I'm over the moon with second place and what more could have I done? I had good pace throughout the race and while there were a few sections where I was stronger than Pete, he was stronger than me in a couple of sections so the lead kept going up and down. He's a quality rider and he wasn't going to let me disappear into the distance was he but at one stage I was thinking to myself 'will you just piss off!'
"I had a couple of issues with the engine and fifth gear wouldn't go in with the quickshifter, I was having to use my hand whilst I also made a couple of mistakes so tried really hard to be smooth. I caught a few backmarkers in the wrong places on the last lap as well which cost me four seconds from Sulby to Ramsey as you have to be so respectful when it comes to overtaking them.
"I'm strong on the bottom half of the circuit which suits a road racer more whereas Pete is strong over the Mountain, which suits a rider with a short circuit background so I know what I need to work on. But I'm not making excuses - I've had a win, two seconds and a third this week and I'm going home on the boat so I can't complain."
