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He’s the fastest man at the Isle of Man TT, NW200 and Ulster GP – and at the first race of the 2022 TT, Peter “Hicky” Hickman proved he’s still the quickest person on two wheels picking up the win in the RST Superbike race.
Leading the field from start to finish in the opening race of this year’s TT, Hicky crossed the chequered flag 39.9 seconds ahead of second-place finisher Dean Harrison. He also set the fastest lap of the race with an average speed of 133.461mph on his Gas Monkey Garage by FHO Racing BMW M 1000 RR.
Talking about his win, the sixth of his career at the TT, Hicky said: “That’s always the aim, of course, to try and win comfortably. Usually, that doesn’t happen but everything just worked absolutely perfectly. The bike worked awesome right from the get-go. Normally I’m a bit steady on the first lap but I think the warm-up got me woken up so when I got on the superbike I was ready to go. Even in the first sector, I was three seconds ahead of everyone. I’ve never seen that before. I got my head down and pulled a bit of a gap and then just managed the race from there.”
To say he was flying would be an understatement, and his Motul-lubricated BMW worked flawlessly throughout the six-lap Superbike race. Hicky added: “The bike was working absolutely mega. The team’s done a fantastic job. We had a few electrical issues going on and the team’s worked tirelessly all week to make sure they’ve got it perfect. And from Thursday night onwards the bike hasn’t missed a beat and been absolutely faultlessly. The competition here is probably stronger than it’s ever been before. You look at the entry list and there’s a lot of winners down there.”
In the second race, the Monster Energy Supersport, Hicky finished third behind Dean Harrison in second and Michael Dunlop in first. But later in the day, he once again rode to victory in the RL360 Superstock race. Leading from the start, Hicky led second-place Conor Cummins and kept the momentum up to finish 12.7 seconds ahead of him at the finish.
Speaking before the TT, Hicky said of the benefit Motul brings to his racing: “Motul’s products are second to none in the market. They are the market leaders. I think the performance on the bike is definitely going to be stronger because of it. The lubricants that they come up with and how that affects the engine is always positive. And obviously we need our engines to perform at the absolute maximum. So, to get the most out of them, you need to also have a very high-quality oil and people that know what they're doing. And Motul is obviously that company.”
Hicky is clearly the man to watch in the headline act of the TT fortnight, Friday’s Milwaukee Senior TT, a six-lap endurance race over the mountain course where he holds the lap record, negotiating the 37.75-mile course in 16 minutes 42.778 seconds at 135.452mph in 2018.
