Isle of Man TT: Hickman triumphs in shortened first Superbike race

Delays to the practice week schedule due to bad weather forced the SBK race to be postponed from Saturday to Monday, with a reduced distance of four laps.

But only two of those were completed before an incident at Snugborough early in the third lap brought out a red flag and the race result was declared soon afterwards.

Harrison led Hickman by 1.2 seconds on the run to Glen Helen on the opening lap, with the Silicone Engineering Kawasaki rider extending his advantage to 1.5s as they headed over the mountain section.

Hickman, the outright TT lap record holder, reduced Harrison's lead to one second at the end of the opening tour, but 1.5s would split the pair again at Glen Helen, before Harrison opened up an advantage of 4.8s at Ballaugh.

Hickman was racing a hybrid Superstock/SBK after he encountered several issues during practice on his Smith Racing BMW S1000RR, and he dug deep on the run up the mountain, and was just 0.045s behind Harrison at the Bungalow.

He managed to get by led into the pit stop phase by 1.7s, but lost a second to Harrison during the stops.

The red flag was flown shortly after they rejoined, with Hickman guiding the new S1000RR to his third TT win by 1.7s on corrected time.

James Hiller ran third early on the first lap on the Bournemouth Kawasaki, but faded dramatically by the second lap and was 41s off the lead in fourth.

Michael Rutter completed the top five on his Bathams Honda RC213V-S MotoGP replica, with Tyco BMW's Michael Dunlop 2.7s behind in sixth.

David Johnson was top Honda runner home in seventh, with Jamie Coward (Prez Racing), Lee Hardy's Gary Johnson and Penz13.com rider Davey Todd rounding out the top 10.

John McGuinness's TT return ended on the opening lap, when he was forced to pull into pit lane when his Norton developed a technical issue.

Lee Johnston (Ashcourt Racing) also retired.