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 ꦕwinner Davey Todd.

The TT record holder endured a tricky practice week on his new BMW Superbike machine, but stillﷺ came into the opening race of the 2025 event on Monday as a main favourite.

Dunlop pushed eventual winner Todd har꧒d across the four-lap ⭕contest, getting the 8TEN BMW rider’s le🦋ad down to as low as 0.26ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ9s at the start of the final tour.

Expe👍cting 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” 𒀰which meant he “lost all momentum” at that section.

Dropping 2.271s behind Todd on corrected time at this point, Dunlop produced a 13💯5.416mph to end up ju✅st 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 star꧑ted dropping seconds.

“Then we blew a hole in the tyre, the tyre’s destroyed, so w🎐e lost all grip, which is highly disappointing because I knew on the last lap we could have a bit of a second breath ℱand have another go.

“But it’s just the way it is. I’𝓡m 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’v🐓e 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 tecꦅhnically the same as last year, so we’ve been struggling a li✱ttle bit this week.

“But thanks to the boys we got꧑ aꦗ bit of a push on there and got a wee bit closer.

“I just got caඣught 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.

“Itཧ wasn’t the right p🥂lace and I lost all momentum. But it’s just the way it goes.”

Dunlop later claimed a 30th TT victo꧋ry in the three-lap Supersport race 🎀on his firsꦰt start on the island on his Ducati Panigale V2.