Michael Dunlop has confirmed the arrival of Ducati as a new force in road racing by handing it a second win of the 2025 Isle of Man TT and claiming his own 32nd victory around the Mountain Course.
He doubled up ahead of Dean Harrison and Davey Todd as they repeated their results from the opening supersport race.
Dunlop’s victory never really looked to be in doubt as soon as he got going, gradually extending out an early lead over Harrison from the first timing point to eventually cruise home nearly 30 seconds clear of the Honda Racing rider.
Running a special yellow Ducati livery on his Milwaukee Tools-sponsored Panigale V2 as an homage to the celebratory colours ran by Ducati at other events in the past, it was a fitting way to crown what has been domination of the class for the fourth year in a row for the Northern Irishman.
“The Ducati has been here before,” he explained afterwards, “so we knew what it was capable of doing and it was just a big challenge for me to jump onto something completely different.
“But it’s obviously completely paid out with two wins from two races.
“Ducati has a red colour, and they have a yellow colour. They were here today, one of the bosses, so the main thing was just to do something nice and something different. Nobody knew about it, only me and one other fella and the boy who stickered it, so it was cool to do.”
Even the nerves of a slow to start bike coming out of the pitstop wasn’t enough to slow him down, even though he did admit that he was a little worried for a few seconds when the machine wouldn’t fire up.
“I was a wee bit nervous,” Dunlop, “and with the closed clutch system I wasn’t sure of the drag and if I’d be able to bump it. We reset the ECU back on again and it fired, but I still don’t really know what it was.
“You can only churn it for so long before you run out of battery, but in fairness to the wee girl she piped up and away she went.”
And while Dunlop’s record tally, extended again in Wednesday’s race to 49 podiums and 32 wins, might not be the thing that he’s most focused on at the minute, he did acknowledge after the race that he’s now achieved the goals he’s set himself coming into this year’s TT with three races still to run.
“If I don’t win another race this week, what odds,” he admitted. “Not what odds, because I want to, but I said I wanted to come here and get into the thirties and now we’re not just in the thirties, we’re in it.
“I’ve got three more races to have a go at and I will definitely be having a go at them. It won’t be for a lack of trying. And we’ll see what happens.”
Behind Dunlop and Harrison, Todd was once again forced to settle for a lower podium slot. An early challenger to Harrison for second, even briefly taking the spot back off him in the opening stages, the Superbike TT race winner drifted back as the race progressed to finish 15 seconds down on Harrison at the end of the four-lap race.
Results
1 Michael Dunlop, MD Racing Ducati
2 Dean Harrison, Honda Racing UK
3 Davey Todd, myCOOLMAN by Padgett’s Motorcycles Honda
4 Paul Jordan, Jackson Racing powered by Prosper2 Honda
5 James Hind, North Lincs Components Suzuki
6 Joshua Brookes, Jackson Racing powered by Prosper2 Honda
7 Mike Browne, Boyce Precision by Russell Racing Yamaha
8 Dominic Herbertson, HRRC / Gilbert Brown & Son Ltd Ducati
9 Ian Hutchinson, moobob / UGP Yamaha MLav Racing Yamaha
10 Michael Evans, Smith Racing Triumph
