Qualifying concluded on Friday afternoon in spectacular fashion as Dean Harrison lit up the Mountain Course, the Honda Racing UK rider lapping at 135.484mph on his Superstock machine.
Having topped every qualifying session, Harrison will head into Saturday’s three-lap Superstock race as the clear favourite.
His 135mph+ lap was a short lap as the session concluded, rather than a flying lap, and it put him almost half a minute quicker than the second fastest, Josh Brookes.
Unlike the morning session, most riders went with their Superstock bike first. A major exception was Peter Hickman, the 8TEN Racing rider hoping to make further improvements after his earlier comments that the Superbike BMW M1000RR still needed to be refined.
Black Flag
John McGuinness (Honda Racing UK) was out on his Superstock bike, the team having changed engines on his Superbike between sessions. It was Michael Dunlop (MD Racing BMW) who led the field away ahead of Ian Hutchinson (Team RST BMW), Brookes (DAO Racing Honda) and Harrison.
Hickman was stringing together a strong lap, but he was black flagged at Parliament Square in Ramsey to allow marshals to inspect his BMW.
Harrison had no such issues and the Ballaugh man built on his advantage. His first lap speed of 133.549mph was 12.6 seconds quicker than Dunlop (131.913mph).
The second lap saw Harrison really fly. Despite it being a short lap, his speed was 135.484mph, just 1.6 seconds outside his personal best set in last year’s first Superstock race. Brookes posted his best lap of the week at 132.220mph.
Dunlop came in to make changes to his Superstock BMW, getting back on track to put in a second lap of 131.946mph.
However, Hickman’s session went further awry. Having switched to his Superstock machine, he ran wide at Sulby Bridge and then pulled in immediately afterwards at Ginger Hall.
The final qualifying session at TT 2026 got underway at 3.15pm with Supersport and Sportbike machines. Dean Harrison was a notable absentee, his work for the day done.
Dunlop
Dunlop was quickest on the Scars Racing Ducati to Glen Helen. His opening lap of 128.719mph further cemented his status as the hot favourite for Supersport honours.
Hickman was second fastest on the Swan Racing by PHR Performance Triumph at 127.301mph, 11.7 seconds down on Dunlop, with Brookes (125.556mph) and Coward (125.357mph) completing the top four.