When superbike action gets underway on Saturday at the Isle of Man TT for the first time in three years, there’ll be one rider everyone is lining up to beat: five-time TT winner Peter Hickman.
He’s clear favourite for the three 1000cc races thanks not only to his record at the event but due to what he’s been up to during the TT’s COVID-enforced absence.
While many of his rivals have largely been parked up since June 2019 waiting on their next chance to take on the ferocious 37.73-mile course, Hickman has been riding basically every single weekend he can in the British Superbike championship, where he has established himself as a frontrunner in the past few seasons.
“I’ve done more riding than probably anyone,” Hickman told The Race before heading to this year’s TT, “but I don’t know if that means I’m more prepared.
“I’m no more prepared than I normally am, within myself, but the big difference from 2019 to this year is that in 2019 we had a bike that we didn’t really know because it was so new.
“Now I’ve been riding the bike for a full year in British Superbikes already, this is my second year on it, and in that sense we know a lot more about the bike than we did before.
“I still did a 134.2mph lap on my sixth ever lap from a standing start, I won the Superstock TT by 19-odd seconds, and we should have won the Senior but it didn’t quite work out in our favour.
“We were already strong then with little or no prep on the bike, so we’re going to come into this year with a lot more.
“That’s not to say that others aren’t doing the same – look at [2019 Senior TT winner] Dean [Harrison], who’s been riding in BSB all year and is getting closer and closer to the front.
“That’s certainly not going to make things easier, but it just means that from our point of view we more or less know where we’re at and where we want to be.”
With Harrison joining him in BSB in keeping his eye in and his body bike-fit, Hickman thinks there’s unlikely to be a huge change this year from 2019, when it was the pair of them running at the front in both superbike and superstock classes.
“You never really know what they’re doing away from the public eye,” he admitted, “but how many people were at the front in 2019 anyway? Or even 2018, for that matter?
“It was only really me and Dean, and I can’t remember exactly how far Conor [Cummins] was off but it was like a minute and a half in third place. That’s not being big headed, it’s just fact.
“But that can all change. Things change year to year, riders adapt, bikes and teams get better, and you never know until you turn up.
“The North West 200 can be an inkling, but even then it doesn’t give you a full picture, and I guess we’ll find out.
“A lot of people are saying that because we’ve been away for so long, it’s going to take ages – but I don’t think that.
“I’m never fast in practice at the TT, if you look, and even in BSB I’m not particularly. I go fast when I need to go fast.
“So I don’t really know, but I don’t think the time away is going to change anything. It’s a piece of tarmac, there’s a few new bits, but it’s the same shape as it’s always been.”
Another thing that he’s absolutely certain of is that his time racing in BSB in the interim won’t affect his TT performances in terms of focus or concentration, or the other way around.
“I never really struggle with it, and I don’t know why,” Hickman laughed.
“Even within the team, they always say I’m reserved before TT, but I don’t really feel I am.
“When I get to BSB and get on the bike, I’m thinking about racing there. I’m not thinking about anything else, only what I can do right now to the best of my abilities.
“I’ve never thought that I’d better not push that last 5% because of TT. I don’t think like that.
“What will be will be, and I don’t necessarily believe in fate but at the same time whatever will happen will happen and there’s nothing you can do about it.
“If you’re going to put yourself in that position of risk, then you just have to get on with it. There’s no point in trying to be reserved and in fact sometimes that ends up worse.
“I do everything at 100%, as I always have done, and nothing ever really changes. That goes for the businesses I run too. I come to a race and I switch off. I don’t answer emails, phonecalls, texts – I’m here to race and I’ll sort out all the s**t I need to sort out on a Monday.”
Yet even the fact that he now has successful businesses – he’s the UK importer for Ohvale minibikes and runs the UK round of MotoGP’s MiniGP series – is something that he all owes to his successful TT debut back in 2014.
Previously a mid-pack BSB racer who’d never quite made it into regular podium contention, Hickman is adamant that his desire to switch to road racing wasn’t about financial reward, despite how well he’s done for himself since then, but rather an opportunity to continue racing at a high level but on a smaller budget.
“Going to TT completely changed my motorcycling career. It changed my life,” he admits.
“At the start of 2014, I had no ride in BSB unless I had a big paycheque, and I’ve never had a big paycheque so that wasn’t happening.
“I had I don’t know how much debt, maybe £30,000 or £40,000. I didn’t own anything, not even a car or a van. I borrowed everything. I lived in a motorhome that wasn’t mine. I literally had nothing, not two pennies to scratch together.
“Going to the TT wasn’t about money at all, it never was, but I wanted to still race bikes even though it had basically made me bankrupt.
“I just love racing bikes, and I wanted to figure out a way to still do that. I couldn’t earn money at the time, and that wasn’t what happened – but I managed to race on a very small amount of money, I got a little bit of help, some people sponsored me that weren’t going to sponsor me at BSB. I got help.”
Going to TT and absolutely blitzing every single newcomer record, Hickman established himself early on as one to watch – a billing that he’s since lived up to with 10 podiums and five wins from his subsequent six outings there.
Inheriting a ride with the RAF Reserves Honda team in BSB following the TT after the tragic death of its rider Simon Andrews at the North West 200, Hickman was able to finally find himself in the place he believes he needed to be – and then proved his own skills not just on the roads by taking a win at his home race of Cadwell Park later in the year to start a renaissance in his career.
“And then I did alright,” he explained of his first year at the TT. “I did alright at the North West 200, I did alright at the TT, and off the back of that I ended up with a decent enough BSB ride.
“I got lucky at Cadwell when the weather helped and I felt really good and strong. I won a race, and I’ve not looked back since.
“Going to the TT turned around my BSB career. I won a race after starting the year with nothing, for the first time since I joined the championship in 2004 and BSB in 2006. Then the year I ended up without a ride, I won a race, which is really ridiculous.
“Racing at the TT hasn’t made me a better circuit rider, because I’ve always been strong, but it’s enabled me to get the correct opportunities in the right teams. I’ve always had one or the other – the team was good but they had no budget and the bike was a bit naff, or the bike was good and the team wasn’t that good.
“It’s never been the full, complete package, and what TT did was open the doors to get me onto the right bike with the right team and into the right position.”
And, now very much still in the right place with the FHO Racing team in both BSB and on the roads, he’s going into this year’s TT in a more confident place than ever before.
But – and it’s a big but – that will only happen if things feel right for the 35-year-old.
Prepared to deal with the inherent risks of the TT up to a point, he’s more than aware how much danger it comes with, and isn’t ready to go beyond his limits just to win.
“The target is always to go there and win,” he said. “The difference for me, I think, is that I want to win but I don’t put the pressure on myself to win.
“I know the team is capable, I know the bike is capable, I know I’m capable because I’ve done it – but if things aren’t feeling right then it’s just not your day.
“I will not put myself out of my comfort zone by saying ‘I’m not feeling right and I need to push a bit more.’
“I’ll push until where I’m comfortable, and if I’m comfortable I’ll have a go. If things aren’t right, I’ll just come back next year or tomorrow or whenever it is.
“The risk is just too much, and you have to be in the right frame of mind. If it is, brilliant.”
