Dean Harrison claimed a dramatic victory in the blue riband Senior TT Race on Friday.

The Bradford ace eventually finished more than 50 seconds clear of second-placed Peter Hickman, but that margin of victory doesn’t tell the whole story.

The latter man, having already claimed a hat-trick of wins at this year’s meeting, appeared well on course to make it four in a week as he led by roughly 20 seconds at the end of the fourth lap.

However, that advantage was drastically reduced to only seven seconds by Glen Helen on the penultimate lap, with Hickman’s machine clearly struggling.

Almost inevitably, Harrison moved into the lead at Ballaugh with a narrow 1.1s margin which quickly jumped up to 7.8 at Ramsey and then into double figures at the Bungalow.

At the start of the final lap, Kawasaki man Harrison held a comfortable 18.3-second lead over Hickman, while the latter’s advantage over third-placed Manxman Conor Cummins was quickly decreasing, having gone from 43s down to 33s in less than a lap.

Cummins lopped another nine seconds off Hickman by the time they passed Glen Helen for a final time and then, by the Manxman’s home town of Ramsey, it was down to 12.8.

Could the Milenco by Padgett's rider overhaul the early leader on the final pass over the mountain, normally Hickman’s strongest part of the course?

At the head of the standings, Harrison cruised home and eventually took victory by more than 53 seconds, clinching his first bike win and Kawasaki’s first Senior win since 1975.

Hickman was able to nurse his bike to the Grandstand and held onto second place by 5.8s ahead of Cummins, while Michael Dunlop was fourth ahead of James Hillier and the impressive Davey Todd in only his second TT.

Full report, reaction, results and photographs in TT News Extra, free inside Tuesday’s Isle of Man Examiner.

Issue three of TT News is one sale now, featuring all the action fro priced only £2. It features all the action from both Supersport races, Sidecar race two which saw the Birchall brothers claim their seventh win in a row, the Superstock and TT Zero races, plus much much more.