Michael Dunlop Wins Supersport TT 2026: Pit Lane Decides the Race

• Michael Dunlop wins by 26.1 seconds over Dean Harrison, Peter Hickman finishes third
• It is Dunlop’s 35th TT victory and his tenth consecutive Supersport win
• Dean Harrison opens with 129.218 mph from a standing start, approximately 208 km/h

After days of rain on the Isle of Man, the TT 2026 was finally able to resume racing on Friday. The Monster Energy Supersport TT Race 2 was the first of three scheduled races of the day, after a traffic accident on the Mountain Road in the morning had pushed the entire schedule back by an hour. Since the first Supersport race on Tuesday, heavy rain at times had washed the tarmac clean, and the rubber buildup that had accumulated during practice week had disappeared. At least the riders were allowed a sighting lap in the morning to explore the remaining damp patches. The start fell at 12:45 p.m. local time in sunshine but strong wind. The race was run over three laps instead of four, just like Race 1, with a mandatory pit stop at the end of the first lap.

Why did the pit stop decide the race?

Michael Dunlop took the lead not on the road but in pit lane: his stop lasted 31.4 seconds, while Dean Harrison’s took 36 seconds. Until then, Harrison had led the race and delivered a remarkable opening lap. From a standing start and braking for the pit entry, the Honda rider averaged 129.218 mph, approximately 208 km/h, the fastest lap of the entire race. In the sector to Ballaugh, he was just 0.8 seconds off the fastest time ever recorded, which Dunlop had set twelve months earlier. With a 3.6-second lead over Dunlop, who himself posted 128.768 mph, Harrison turned in to refuel.

In the Supersport race, no rear tyre change takes place during the stop — it is solely about getting fuel into the tank as quickly as possible. This is exactly where the Ducati crew from Scars Racing worked more precisely than the Honda team. At the first timing split at Glen Helen on lap two, Dunlop was already 1.7 seconds ahead. Harrison had no answer from that point on.

How did Dunlop extend his lead?

Once Dunlop had taken the lead, the gap grew continuously: four seconds at Ballaugh, 7.6 at Ramsey, 11.9 at the Bungalow, and 16 seconds as he crossed the finish line to start the final lap. The Northern Irishman improved from sector to sector, while Harrison battled strong headwinds on the Mountain, where the Honda’s 600cc inline-four could do less than the torque-rich Ducati Panigale V2 with its 955 cubic centimetres.

On the final lap, Dunlop even caught sight of his fellow brand rider on the road and still posted a 128.4 mph lap without needing to push to the limit. The finishing margin was 26.1 seconds, almost exactly the same gap as Race 1 on Tuesday, which Dunlop had won by 24.47 seconds. In parc fermé, the winner uncharacteristically let his emotions show and performed a burnout. “It’s nice to be able to do the double again on the Ducati,” he said in his interview.

What does the 35th victory mean for Dunlop’s record?

With this win, Michael Dunlop now stands at 35 TT victories and has further extended his own record. It was also his tenth consecutive Supersport win, his fifth Supersport double in a row, and his 17th class victory overall, plus podium number 54 in his 97th start. Just two years ago he had equalled his uncle Joey Dunlop’s record of 26 wins; by now, he has definitively pulled away from the competition: more than a third of all TT races he has ever entered, he has won.

Dean Harrison also wrote history with second place. The two-time Supersport runner-up of 2026 now stands at 38 solo podiums and has moved past Bruce Anstey into fourth on the all-time list, behind Michael Dunlop, John McGuinness, and Joey Dunlop. At the finish, he said that more was not possible: “It’s the quickest I’ve ever gone on the little Honda.” Peter Hickman completed the podium for Trooper Triumph by PHR Performance, 13.5 seconds behind Harrison and with a final lap of 127.446 mph. The Englishman raced the Street Triple 765 RS for the first time in Trooper livery and now has three podium finishes from three races this year. He said self-critically that the missing time had to come from himself, with less brake and more throttle.

How did the race unfold behind the podium?

Mike Browne was classified fourth despite a transponder failure that came and went during the race. The Irishman did not appear in the timing monitors for much of the race and was even listed as a retirement at one point before timing confirmed the result. He only secured fourth place on the final lap: with the fastest Supersport lap he has ever ridden, over 127 mph, he moved past Paul Jordan by 0.9 seconds. This meant Browne gained exactly the position he had lost on Tuesday through a 30-second penalty for speeding in pit lane.

Paul Jordan finished fifth and set the fastest Supersport lap of his career at 127.164 mph from a standing start. On the final lap, the Northern Irishman had to nurse his Jackson Racing Ducati home with overheating problems, with coolant temperatures rising to 120 degrees at times. Josh Brookes followed just 1.6 seconds behind in sixth and also set a personal best at 127.132 mph on the Suzuki. Dominic Herbertson, Jamie Coward, Shaun Anderson, and Ian Hutchinson completed the top ten. Behind them, Mitch Rees recorded his best TT result in eleventh place, Pierre Yves Bian finished 14th, and Erno Kostamo came home 16th as the best privateer. Conor Cummins retired his Suzuki at the end of the second lap. Jamie Cringle crashed at Union Mills and was airlifted to Noble’s Hospital, though the local rider was reported to be conscious according to race officials.

What comes next at the TT 2026?

Two more races were scheduled for the same day: the first Sportbike race over two laps without a pit stop, and the Milwaukee Senior TT. For the Sportbike race, Dunlop on the Paton was considered the favourite, while Harrison does not compete in this class and was able to use the break to recover for the highlight of the week.

For the Senior TT, the Honda camp also confirmed a remarkable move: Dean Harrison switched to the Superstock machine, on which he had been faster in qualifying than on the Superbike. Since no Superstock race had been possible due to the weather earlier in the week, the machinery remained largely untested in race conditions. With three solo riders at the front who had shared every podium at the TT 2026 so far, everything pointed towards another chapter in the Dunlop versus Harrison duel.

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