Jamie Hamilton shares a joke with Michael Dunlop during practice week at the Isle of Man TT

Dungannon team owner John Burrows says his hopes and prayers are with young Ulster rider Jamie Hamilton, who was critically injured at the Isle of Man TT on Friday.

The 24-year-old from Ballyclare came off Burrows’ Suzuki GSX-R1000 Superbike in the final race of the legendary motorcycling festival in the Senior TT.

The incident happened on the high-speed exit of the fast right-hander at the end of the long Cronk-y-Voddy straight on the run towards the 11th Milestone at Burnside.

Hamilton was airlifted to Nobles Hospital in Douglas after being treated at the scene and was later transferred to Aintree University Hospital in Liverpool.

His injuries were initially reported as ‘serious but not life-threatening’ but Hamilton sustained serious head, arm and leg injuries in the accident and remains in a critical condition.

Burrows, who made the trip to Liverpool with Jamie’s mum Helen, told the News Letter on Sunday night that the former top TT newcomer is a ‘terrific lad’ and said he is praying Hamilton will pull through.

“All our hopes and prayers are with him and we’re just praying that he’ll come through this. The amount of support we’ve had from people has been incredible but unfortunately there is nothing any of us can do right now,” Burrows said.

“He’s a very seriously ill lad. The next few days are going to be crucial and initially at Nobles hospital they told us that he might not survive this.

“Naturally we’re all hoping that Jamie can pull through and I’m hopeful that he can. It’s just devastating for everyone.

“Jamie was just buzzing about being at the TT and we were loving having him in the team. He just seemed to walk into the team and fit in straight away,” added Burrows.

“I knew Jamie for a long time before he joined our team without knowing him really well, but he’s almost become like an adopted son and he was so good with our kids. I was keeping him going saying the reason why he’s so good with them is because he has the same mentality as them – he’s just a big kid.

“He’s a super kid and I can’t speak highly enough about Jamie. I’m not saying that because he’s lying in a hospital bed – I’d have said the exact same thing if you’d asked me about him two weeks ago.”

Burrows has heard conflicting reports over the cause of Hamilton’s accident but said it seems he was simply ‘caught out’ at one of the fastest corners on the whole of the 37.73-mile course.

“He had set his fastest ever TT lap at 128mph on the lap before he crashed [from a standing start].

“I had a chat with Steve Mercer who was riding behind Jamie and he said that he’d been riding absolutely perfect,” said Burrows.

“Unfortunately he got caught out. I’ve heard a couple of different versions about what happened but it seems that maybe the bike got a bit unsettled as he went through the corner and caught him out.

“It’s one of the fastest corners on the circuit and it’s definitely not somewhere you want to be coming off at.

“He had set his fastest ever Supertwin lap, his fastest 600 lap and his fastest Superbike lap at the TT,” he added.

“Sadly, it’s one of those things that happens in racing. We’re just praying he can come out of this.”

Kyle White