TT 2017: Hutchinson: 'I wanted to pack in after lap one'

Ian Hutchinson took his first Isle of Man TT Superbike victory since 2010 after beating Peter Hickman in a close fought opening encounter this afternoon.

The Tyco BMW star notched up his 15^th TT win as he crossed the line five seconds ahead of his fellow BMW rider Peter Hickman. But, it wasn’t all plain sailing for Hutchinson who felt he was struggling in the opening laps.

However, after two sublime pit stops, he managed to gain the ground he needed to take the lead and despite a late race charge from Hickman, the Bingley Bullet put in his best sector of the race over the mountain to give the Tyco TAS Racing team their first Superbike victory since 2008.

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“Thank God!” Hutchinson laughed after the race. “I did all my winter testing on the bike pretty much all race day last year and two weeks before the North West, the team built me a brand new bike, which is a Super Stock bike with a Superbike engine. That was it, so it was either going to work or not work, it was my choice, they did it, they went with it and massive thanks to them for trusting what I thought was going to work

“Everything was changing all the time, I just didn’t know what to think about the race because on lap one I just wanted to pack in because I didn’t have a bike that I thought I could actually push to win with which feels disappointing because I was really happy with stuff before and I thought it’s the TT, its six laps, just keep digging in, theres another race on Friday that we need to learn a lot for and thank god I did keep digging in.”

Pick up a copy of our special edition McGuinness: Ordinary bloke. Extraordinary Racer. This special from MCN, celebrates the career of one of the sport’s best-loved road racers. Affectionately known as McPint, John’s career has wowed and entertained bike racing fans for more than 20 years. Buy it here. 

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