Michael Dunlop on Isle of Man TT Superstock struggles: “We’ve had problems all week”

After finishing third in the second Superstock race at the 2025 Isle of Man TT, Michael Dunlop said he’s been dealing with problems on the BMW M1000 RR “all week”.

The Ballymoney rider is yet to win a 1,000cc race at this year’s TT, having switched to BMW machinery for this year after spending 2023 and 2024 on Hondas in the Superstock and Superbike classes.

Although BMW has dominated in the ‘big bike’ classes in recent years, that dominance has been broken somewhat by Honda and Dean Harrison in 2025, who have won both Superstock races, while Davey Todd was able to take victory over Dunlop in the Superbike TT on Monday.

Todd, too, has complained of electronics issues on his Superstock BMW at the TT, and Dunlop admitted after the second Superstock race that he is still encountering issues of his own.

“We’ve just had problems all week with the bike,” Dunlop said after Superstock Race 2 in his post-race parc ferme interview.

“It seems like an electronical issue. We’ve been struggling a little bit.”

Dunlop added that he knew he’d lost the win after two corners of the race as a result of a run-on.

“I ran on on the first lap, two corners in, and once I knew I’d done that it was game over,” he said.

“So, we just had to battle away just to get back to the podium.

“I saw ‘James’ on my board so I knew I must have been dicing with James [Hillier], so once I saw him down the road I knew I was fine, so I just sort of got him within sight and went sort of steady, there was no point of stressing on.

“I knew Dean [Harrison[ would’ve been out the blocks fast, and I saw [Todd] in the pits, I think it wouldn’t start, so I knew then that Dean was gone so there was no point even trying to fight for that one.”

Dunlop added that a lack of track time had contributed to his struggles on the Superstock and Superbike machines.

“It’s just been a hard week, especially on the big bikes this week,” he said.

“With little track time, we’ve just struggled to get going. But it’s just the way the cookie crumbles.”

Victory in Supertwin

Later in the day, Dunlop was back on the top step in the Supertwin race, beating Davey Todd by over 25 seconds to sweep the class for the 2025 edition of the TT.

The victory included a new Supertwin lap record on the final lap, that Dunlop admitted afterwards he was surprised about.

“The bike’s been good, we didn’t do a big pile of laps on it, obviously – we didn’t have the chance to anyway, really,” Dunlop said in his post-race TV interview, referring to the weather in practice week.

“The last lap [time] I was surprised because I backed off [to] maintain the bike to try and make sure everything was alright.

“The Paton boys have done a great job, I’d like to thank those boys.

“The main thing for me is winning races. Everybody says you need a Paton so the boys have got Patons, so I’m glad to still be at the front.”

Senior focus

Dunlop also said after the Supertwin race that he still has some issues to resolve on his Superbike ahead of the Senior TT on Saturday.

“Lack of practice really, if I’m honest with you, has hindered us a bit on the big bikes, and probably the 600 [Supersport], too,” he said.

“But, the main thing is [Saturday]. I’m looking forward to it.

“Let’s see what the weather’s going to be and hopefully the changes we’ve made– we made changes for the practice lap that didn’t really work, so hopefully we can make something to make it work.”