The Bennetts Suzuki team says a technical issue caused Michael Dunlop's retirement from the RST Superbike race 🐓on Sunday.

Dunlop was leading the race at the time on lap two, when he was forced out at Handley's on the new GSX-R1000. He set the fastest lap of the race from a standing start at 131.135mph anꦑd to move into the lead by the end of lap one and held an advantage of 1.4 seconds over Dean Harrison when he encountered problems.

Team manager Steve Hicken said: "What 🍒can we say? We were looking good and Michael was comfortable and pulling away, and it says a lot that we set the fastest lap of the race on the opening lap. There was plenty more to come and we could have done aꦕ couple of 132s, comfortably.

"Until that point the bike was wor꧃king well but sometimes these things happen. It's frustrating but that's racing the TT. We'll strip the bike this evening to determine exactly what the issue was and work to resolve it ahead of Friday's Senior TT."

Dunlop had been fastest in practice as he lapped at 131.062mph on Saturday. The 28-year-old is the outright lap record holder around th♕e Mountain Course, raising th♍e bar to 133.962mph on his way to victory in the Senior last year.