TT ace Michael Dunlop finished 11th in his debut appearance at the Daytona 200 event in Florida the Sunday before last.

The 31-year-old from Ballymoney had qualified 21st on the grid aboard an unusual, to him, RPM Kawasaki ZX6 636 after struggling with bike issues that limited his track time.

The 19-time TT winner finished sixth in the support ’Expert’ race on Saturday and was holding onto ninth place in Sunday’s 200 with five laps of the scheduled 57 remaining.

The original start saw Dunlop hold 18th position after 18 laps before an incident brought out the red flags and it was halted.

He was flying at the restart and, towards the end of the race, his lap times were getting close to those of the podium men, posting a best of 1min 51.5 sec.

Dunlop ultimately came home 55 seconds behind winner, 19-year-old American Brandon Paasch, with 18-year-old Sean Dylan Kelly a mere 0.030 adrift in second place on a similar Yamaha R6 - Paasch slipstreaming past his rival on the final sprint to the line.

New Hampshire-based Brit Max Flinders was one place in front of Dunlop in a race otherwise dominated by riders from the USA.