When John McGuinness was asked to sum up the 2026 Isle of Man TT, the road-racing veteran did not reach for nuance. "Dean hammered everyone," he said.
He was not exaggerating. Dean Harrison left the Mountain Course as the dominant force of the fortnight, winning the six-lap RST Superbike TT by 15.5 seconds on his Honda Racing Fireblade before going on to be declared the Senior TT winner after that race was cut short. It was the sixth TT victory of Harrison's career and meant the Yorkshireman had now won in each of the event's solo classes.
What made it sting for his rivals was how he did it. Harrison and his Honda team had gambled on a machine built largely to his own brief, and McGuinness — part of the same factory Honda effort — pointed straight at that decision when explaining the gap.
"It shows just how good the stock bike is for him to have done what he's done this week," McGuinness said. "He knows what he wants from a motorbike, we worked out what to ask for and Honda delivered. Dean is a realist, he knew what he wanted and asked for this hybrid superbike to be built."
Harrison framed the project as a punt that could easily have backfired.
"I've had good pace all week. I had a bit more in the tank to be honest, I feel like I can go a bit better. I got a good lead and just controlled it from there really," he said after the Superbike race. "Massive thanks to the Honda team, the bike never missed a beat the whole race. It was a bit of a gamble. I asked them to build this bike for me and they sort of looked at me... but they've gone away and built it and I've won the Superbike race, so it's quite good!"
"It wasn't until about half way through lap 4 that I started to calm myself," Hickman admitted. "I'm still not the way I should be, I'm not hitting all my markers. I'm still not quite myself, but from lap 4 onwards I started to feel more like me."
Michael Dunlop completed the Superbike podium, but did so on the back foot. A late switch from a planned Ducati ride to the Honda had left him short of testing, and he offered no excuses: "It's my own fault," he said, adding that he "won't get caught like that again."
Dunlop saved his own dominance for the Supersport class, where he reeled off back-to-back wins to take his all-time TT record to 35 victories, then added a win in the new-look Sportbike category for good measure. The fortnight, in short, belonged to two riders.
Josh Brookes, fourth in the Superbike race, summed up the effort it took simply to stay in contention.
"It's a credit to the team, the superbike has been quite a difficult machine over the practice week, and we had to make a lot of changes to make it competitive," he said. "I think even in that race it's still visible to see that's not easy to ride."
McGuinness, at 54, dragged his tribute-liveried Honda to fifth — a nostalgic ride on a replica of the bike he first raced at the TT back in 1996. Beaten but unbowed, he was happy to play his part in Harrison's week.
"I'm proud to be part of this jigsaw and super happy to be in this fantastically solid team," he said.
---
*Originally published on [Motorsports Global](https://motorsports.global/article/harrison-hammered-everyone-tt-winning-gamble-2026). Visit for full coverage.*