Hickman won four races at the 2023 TT, with a double in the Superstock class, a win the second Supertwin contest and victory in Saturday’s Senior TT.
But after his two Superstock wins – the second of which coming after setting an outright lap record of 136.358mph – protests were lodged by a rival, thought to be someone from within the Michael Dunlop camp.
The first was for allegedly using an illegal earpiece, while the second was for allegedly running an illegal ECU.
While sources in the TT paddock confirmed the protests – which never amounted to anything - to Autosport, the team had yet to make any public comment.
Speaking after his Senior TT win, Hickman blasted the protests.
“Yeah, people don’t realise what goes on, do they?” Hickman began when asked by Autosport if ending the week with Senior TT victory felt sweeter after all of the behind-the-scenes drama.
“Both Superstock results got protested before we’d even left the winners’ enclosure with stupid shit.
“I guess that just means I’m in their head more than what they are in mine.”
In the Senior TT, he raced his Superbike-spec BMW having finally gotten it right in the warm-up on Friday, following a raft of “unnerving” problems throughout the 2023 event on it.
Hickman took the lead early on lap one and set a 135mph lap from a standing start.
He says this “broke everyone”, which is what he wanted to do in a bid to build up a solid early lead.
“I kind of broke everyone on the first lap, which was kind of the plan,” he added.
“This morning was the first time this bike has actually been right on that warm-up lap, which I didn’t really want to do, but we didn’t have much of a choice because we wanted to make sure the bike was OK.
“The bike was mint right from when I set off, so I had a big sigh of relief even before I got to the bottom of Bray Hill.
“Just meant I knew I could do what I wanted, when I wanted to.
“First lap I kind of broke them. It was great to see Dean [Harrison, who finished second ahead of Michael Dunlop] got out the right side of bed today, that’s brilliant.
“I thought I was racing Michael for a while, I caught Michael on the road and realised it wasn’t Michael.
“Super happy for the team, massive congratulations to all the team and the sponsors.”
Picture credit @ttracesofficial/Pacemaker Press
