Video: Michael Dunlop and Ian Hutchinson's near-miss at Isle of Man TT

OK, so we've already shown you how outright wild the Isle of Man TT Mountain Course is at speed when riding alone with Guy Martin. Walls, trees, houses, curbs, telephone poles, plus areas where you're either getting into a monster wheelie over a rise or actually getting some serious air...and you've got to manage all this while literally flying down the road at triple-digit speeds.

Now take a ride with multi-time TT winner Michael Dunlop as he hurtles down into Kirk Michael (a small town on the west side of the island), when out of nowhere comes an out-of-control Ian Hutchinson into view over a rise directly in front of Dunlop. Somehow Hutchinson gathers it all back up and stays on the throttle (as well as Dunlop luckily avoiding colliding with Hutchinson...perhaps some words were exchanged in the paddock afterward?) and steadily pulls away from Dunlop as the pair run through Kirk Michael and out into Birkin's Bend and Rhencullen.

In fact, Hutchinson rapidly pulling away demonstrates the multitude of issues that Dunlop was encountering with the Milwaukee Yamaha R1. It was enough for Dunlop to sensationally announce today that he was abruptly abandoning the Milwaukee Yamaha team to switch to the Buildbase BMW team. After just three laps of practice, Dunlop reportedly had enough of the issues that saw him "only" posting a 124.519 mph lap (compared to leader Bruce Anstey's 128.641 mph lap), and made the switch. Dunlop is no stranger to making sudden moves like this, however; last year, the Balleymoney native dropped the Metzeler tire sponsorship he had to switch to Dunlop tires after the practice week for the same competitive reasons.