History was made at the Isle of Man TT on Saturday morning as Michael Dunlop shattered the lap and race records to take victory in the opening RST Superbike race.
Dunlop recorded the first-ever sub 17 minute laps around the famous Mountain Course – one of which was a sensational 133.393mph.
In the end the 27-year-old finished 19 seconds ahead of Ian Hutchinson, who was also inside the outright lap record, with a race winning time that was 1m15.643s inside the old race record.
Dunlop and Hutchinson were joined on the podium by John McGuinness on his Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade machine.
Dunlop signaled his intentions from the get-go and took the lead from Hutchinson at Glen Helen on the opening lap of the race. James Hillier also made a positive start in third place, with Michael Rutter, Dean Harrison and Conor Cummins rounding-out the top six at the end of the first lap.
By the time Dunlop reached Ramsey for the first time he had doubled his lead to four seconds and his pace continued as he produced the first-ever sub-17 minute lap – at 133.369mph. Hutchinson also went under the old outright lap record but was still 3.6 seconds behind the leader.
Behind them Harrison had taken third spot away from Hillier as all the riders inside the top six lapped at more than 130mph.
Hutchinson caught McGuinness on the road and his second lap was almost identical to his first at 132.884mph, but Dunlop went quicker still and his second lap of 133.393mph extended his lead to 7.5s.
In the race for the TT Privateer’s Championship, Daniel Hegarty took the maximum 25 points after finishing 13th overall, also posting a new personal best lap of the Mountain Course at 128.341mph
