Michael Dunlop’s Superbike TT hopes dashed after “we blew a hole in the tyre”
29-time TT winner reflects on Superbike TT loss
Michael Dunlop says he “blew a hole in the tyre” on the final lap of the 2025 Isle of Man TT Superbike race, which stopped him from overhauling winner Davey Todd.
The TT record holder endured a tricky practice week on his new BMW Superbike machine, but still came into the opening race of the 2025 event on Monday as a main favourite.
Dunlop pushed eventual winner Todd hard across the four-lap contest, getting the 8TEN BMW rider’s lead down to as low as 0.269s at the start of the final tour.
Expecting a “second breath” on the final lap to push Todd to the finish line, Dunlop says he suffered an issue with his rear tyre and “lost all grip”.
He also admits his pass on the road of Honda’s Dean Harrison didn’t come at “the right place” which meant he “lost all momentum” at that section.
Dropping 2.271s behind Todd on corrected time at this point, Dunlop produced a 135.416mph to end up just 1.296s adrift at the chequered flag.
Asked by TT+ if he was happy with a second-place, Dunlop said: “Not really. It was hard. I was really down on the first lap and then started to claw my way back again.
“Then on the last lap I felt good, but I caught Dean at the wrong place and just started dropping seconds.
“Then we blew a hole in the tyre, the tyre’s destroyed, so we lost all grip, which is highly disappointing because I knew on the last lap we could have a bit of a second breath and have another go.
“But it’s just the way it is. I’m not sure what we can do to cure the issue we’ve now got.
“But it was a tough race, I knew it was going to be, but the boys have done a good job.
“We’ve gone from having really, really awful lap times in practice where we struggled, to now be doing 40 seconds a lap quicker.
“So, we’ve made a new step. We now need to get to change that balance again for Saturday, but the lack of track time hasn’t helped.
“It’s probably happening for the other boys because they’re here on bikes technically the same as last year, so we’ve been struggling a little bit this week.
“But thanks to the boys we got a bit of a push on there and got a wee bit closer.
“I just got caught with Dean. I took too long to pass him somewhere and when I did pass him it didn’t really suit where I did pass him.
“It wasn’t the right place and I lost all momentum. But it’s just the way it goes.”
Dunlop later claimed a 30th TT victory in the three-lap Supersport race on his first start on the island on his Ducati Panigale V2.
