Honda Racing rider Dean Harrison is no longer the bridesmaid at the 2025 Isle of Man TT after backing up third and second in the opening two races of this year’s event with a stunning victory over Davey Todd and Michael Dunlop in the shortened two-lap opening superstock race of this year’s event.
It was Todd, not usual early charger Harrison, who led to the first timing point at Glen Helen on the opening lap of the race and looked to be in control of the race across the first lap - but as they crossed Glencrutchery Road his small two-second gap from across the Mountain had dropped to only 0.4s.
And by the time they got to Glen Helen for the second time round, it was Harrison who was into the lead by a slender margin - a gap that he was then just able to extend and extend out to the chequered flag, where he took his fourth win and first since 2019, and Honda Racing’s first since John McGuinness won the Senior TT for it in 2015.
Harrison went into race week as perhaps more of a favourite for race wins than he has in recent seasons, but not so much in the superstock class.
“We’ve been there or thereabouts,” said Harrison afterwards,
“We’ve been knocking on the door of wins all year, and I got my first board at ‘P2, +3’ and got really stuck in over the Mountain and pulled Davey back in
“I thought ‘right, this is a race now,’ although we say race when one lap around here is like a full British Superbike race!
“It’s a two lap race, but there’s 264 corners in each of those laps and it’s quite physically demanding!
“I just bit the screen everywhere I could, tried to be smooth and to chip away, and I feel really good.”
Todd was able to come home well clear of Michael Dunlop in third, despite admitting afterwards that he had a few minor issues with the 8Ten BMW - while Dunlop pinned the blame for dropping five seconds to the battle for the lead in only the first sector to a technical problem with his BMW off the line.
“One of the electronic functions jammed on the straight,” he admitted of his bad start. “It jammed and I don’t know whether we have a gremlin in the bike or something but the blipper was working sometimes and not working in places.
“With places so fast here, you can’t afford to know if it’s working or not and it just made me nervous in places. You were going into corners and it wasn’t going down through the gears, and especially when you’re so committed here you know about that!”
Dunlop will have another chance to make amends on Tuesday evening, though, with the opening supertwin race going over two laps straight after the superstock podium.
Superstock TT race 1 results
1 Dean Harrison, Honda Racing UK
2 Davey Todd, 8Ten Racing BMW +11.656s
3 Michael Dunlop, MD Racing BMW +32.167s
4 James Hillier, Muc-Off Racing Honda +53.094s
5 Ian Hutchinson Moobob/MLav BMW +57.577s
6 Conor Cummins, Burrows Engineering by RK BMW +1m01.266s
7 Nathan Harrison, H&H Honda +1m03.195s
8 Dom Herbertson, Adam Hewitt Honda +1m03.420s
9 Josh Brookes, Jackson Racing Honda +1m10.948s
10 James Hind, North Lincs Components Honda +1m17.643s
