TT 2016: Senior TT explodes into Dunlop, Hutchy war of words

Today’s Senior TT podium press conference exploded into a war of words between winner and outright lap record holder Michael Dunlop and second-placed man Ian Hutchinson while John McGuinness looked on.

Hutchinson was clearly unhappy with the Dunlop camp as he said they issued a protest following the second Supersport race and accused Keith Flint’s Came BPT team of using oversized pistons in the Yamaha R6 which carried Hutchinson to two middleweight wins this week.

Dunlop himself had been ruled out of the first Supersport race result after his engine was found to be using illegal coated cam buckets installed in the motor two years ago when they were inside the regulations.

Hutchinson also intimated that Dunlop had received preferential engine treatment from BMW, which Dunlop denied, saying that all the BMW riders used the same spec motors.

“We struggled with the engine we had last week, it doesn’t have the same power that Michael’s has got so I opted to run the Superstock engine today. The bike was great and faultless but not the thing to win the race. The engine we had last week has all top end and no bottom end, where the later spec engine that Michael’s team have has top end and bottom end,” said Hutchinson.

“I have done my best to congratulate Michael all week but I am pretty disgusted with the behaviour on Wednesday to be honest. The scrutineers suspected something but there was nothing wrong, Nichael’s team protested us and then he tried to spread a rumour we had oversized pistons. I need to have a think about coming back to the TT to be honest unless the organisers explain what’s going on there.”

Dunlop countered with a smile on his face saying: “It was a scrutineer pointed at it, not me, so if he wants to bitch at me, that’s no problem. I am a big enough man to take it on the chin, it makes no difference to me.

“My engines are no different than anybody else’s in the Superbike. I would like to say thank you to the boys in Munich. Even though BMW got rid of me, I still have some friends there and they put me a good engine together but they are the exact same that anyone can buy.”