Isle of Man TT: Hickman storms to Superstock win ahead of Cummins

Hickman eased to victory on Saturday in the Superbike race and tallied up a seventh TT win on Monday evening in the Superstock class on the M1000RR BMW to add to his third from this morning’s Supersport outing.

The second race of Monday following this morning’s first Supersport contest, a serious incident at the end of the latter forced the three-lap Superstock race to be postponed from 3pm to 6:35pm local time.

Hickman held a seven-tenth lead aboard his FHO BMW through the Glen Helen sector split on the opening lap, with Davey Todd chasing him on corrected time aboard his Padgetts Honda.

Todd suffered a rear tyre failure in Saturday’s Superbike race on his Honda and struggled this morning in the Supersport opener to get his head readjusted.

The Padgetts rider held onto second through the first lap into pitlane for the mandatory fuel stop, but Hickman eased to a 12.7s lead by the end of the opening tour.

A quick pitstop for Todd allowed him to close Hickman’s advantage down to 9.5s through Glen Helen on the second lap, but Hickman didn’t let that gap drop any further.

On the run to Ballaugh, Hickman was 10.7s in front and swelled that lead to 15.9s as he roared across the start/finish line at the Grandstand to begin his final lap.

Behind on the timing screen, Dean Harrison on the DAO Racing Kawasaki held third across the first lap until he came into the pits, when Conor Cummins on the sister Padgetts Honda leapfrogged him.

Harrison returned to third through the first three sectors of the second lap, but Cummins was hauling him in and moved into third again on corrected time over the mountain section.

Cummins cemented this onto his final lap and had also managed to reel in Todd for second, the team-mates swapping places into the Ballaugh section.

Hickman encountered traffic in the first half of his final lap, which reduced his lead over Cummins to 11.4s at the Ramsey sector split.

Cummins was able to take advantage of this to pull clear on the timesheets from Todd by 6.6s, with Harrison just over two seconds further back in fourth.

Hickman had to lap Todd on the road across the mountain, but actually gained time to hold on for his second win of the week as Cummins took second for his first podium of TT 2022.

Todd completed the podium in third, with Harrison 6.8s off the podium in fourth ahead of MD Racing’s Michael Dunlop and the KTS Yamaha of Jamie Coward.

Ian Hutchinson got his TAS Racing BMW home in seventh from Rich Energy’s Dominic Herbertson, Honda’s John McGuinness and Motoray BMW rider Phillip Crowe.

Honda rookie Glenn Irwin couldn’t repeat his Superbike heroics in this evening’s Superstock race after pulling out on lap one in the pits, while Lee Johnston was denied a strong result when his Ashcourt Racing BMW expired on the final tour while he was running inside the top five.