DUNLOP
WINS HISTORIC RELENTLESS SUPERSPORT 2 RACE
-Michael
joins father Robert and uncle Joey on TT winners list
Michael Dunlop today won a heavily delayed second Relentless
Supersport race on his privately entered Street Sweep/Marlow
Construction Yamaha, leading from start to finish, following
in the footsteps of father Robert and Uncle Joey as
a TT winner. The 21-year old stole an early advantage
in the damp conditions and was never headed, coming
home 31 seconds ahead of Bruce Anstey (Relentless by
TAS Suzuki) and Conor Cummins (McAdoo Kawasaki).
Whilst the start line was blessed with sunshine, heavy
rain, and hail, hit the west side of the circuit in
the morning resulting in a 3 and a quarter hour delay
and when the race did get underway at 2pm, the course
was still very damp with lack of adhesion flags shown
from Appledene to Ballaugh. Most of the leading riders
admitted it was going to be very tricky in the early
stages and it was Dunlop, fastest in practice, who took
control from the start, an opening lap of 119.743mph
putting him over ten seconds clear of Cummins.
The difficult conditions could clearly be seen in the
lap times and it was Guy Martin, Anstey, Ryan Farquhar
and Ian Lougher who completed the top six whilst yesterday’s
race winner Ian Hutchinson was down in 9th and Monday’s
Superbike victor John McGuinness in 11th. Mark Buckley
was flying in 11th as was newcomer Michal Dokoupil in
12th.
Dunlop was continually stretching his advantage and
by the end of lap 2 his lead was up to 15 seconds, a
lap of 122.692mph clear indication of the improving
conditions. Cummins and Anstey were up to second and
third with Martin slipping back to fourth whilst Keith
Amor, Steve Plater and Hutchinson were all getting in
to their stride in fifth, sixth and seventh respectively.
Buckley and Dokoupil were still in 11th and 12th but
McGuinness had slipped further back to 14th, clearly
not happy with the damp circuit.
A superb pit stop saw Dunlop’s advantage soar
even higher and as they started their fourth and final
lap, not only was he 24 seconds ahead, he was also third
on the road. Cummins appeared to be in trouble though
and crossed the start line at just 98mph whilst Martin
pulled in to retire, not at all happy with the performance
of his engine. Meanwhile, Dokoupil’s fine ride
came to end when he retired at Ballaugh.
Conditions were improving all the time as the track
dried out and although Plater was charging further up
the leaderboard, Dunlop had the race under control and
with a final lap of 125.077mph, he took his first TT
victory by 31.01 seconds. The win came 11 years after
father Robert’s last win in the 1998 125cc race
and 9 years after Joey’s win in the same class
in 2000.
Behind, Anstey got the verdict over Cummins, whose
problems disappeared as quickly as they’d surfaced,
by just 0.71seconds, pleased to get a finish after 3
DNF’s whilst the Manxman was delighted with his
first ever TT podium.
Plater set the fastest lap of the race, 125.384mph,
on his final lap to take fourth for the third race in
a row, also making it four different manufacturers in
the top 4, with Hutchinson coming through to fifth ahead
of Lougher, as Amor dropped out of fifth on the final
lap. Farquhar took seventh ahead of Buckley who had
a brilliant ride in to eighth for his best ever TT result,
with Carl Rennie and Gary Johnson completing the top
ten.
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