Michael Dunlop says he has silenced those critics who claimed his success in the Supertwin class was down to his choice of Paton machinery after sealing a double and increasing his record of Isle of Man TT wins to 33.

Dunlop won the second Entire Cover Insurance Supertwin race by over 26 seconds from Davey Todd, with Dominic Herbertson earning his second TT podium in third.

The top three places were filled by Paton machines and afterwards Dunlop, who set a new lap record at 123.056mph, was quick to make his point in his post-race interview.

“That’s three Patons in here and people say it’s because I’m on a Paton [that he wins], so everybody else is on a Paton now,” said Dunlop.

placeholder image — Michael Dunlop (MD Racing Paton) at the start of the Entire Cover Insurance Supertwin race at the Isle of Man TT on Friday evening. (Photo by Stephen Davison/Pacemaker Press)

“They are a great wee bike and the bike has been mint, that’s a double again.

“I’d like to have a lap on my own without any stress to see what I could really do but thanks to everybody – my main thing is it’s another win under the belt. I’m happy enough and my job is to win the race.”

Dunlop said he was surprised to break his lap record in the class after slackening his pace on the third and last lap.

“Very nice, was that the last lap? I’m surprised because I backed off a little bit because I saw I had a bit of a lead,” he said.

“It [lead] dropped away down after the pit-stop and came back up again and then I said ‘I’ll get a push on here’, and then on the last lap we just nursed it the last wee bit.”