The 2025 Isle of Man TT has been something of a disaster so far thanks to significant weather disruption meaning that we’re going into racing with only the bare minimum of dry track time and with riders completing the smallest number of qualifying laps in a very long time.
On top of that, we’ve already lost one of the main contenders to injury, adding a very different flavour to what we’re expecting when racing does finally get under way.
Despite that, though, there’s been enough track action for us to analyse the form of at least some of the leading contenders - and to start thinking about who we’re going to see on the top step of the podium when racing does kick off on Monday.
Harrison's gone from dark horse to prime contender
Coming into this year’s road racing season, Dean Harrison was definitely more of an underdog than a favourite - but that notion quickly disappeared at the North West 200 with an impressive display of speed on the factory Honda Racing machines. Practice week at the TT has confirmed that it wasn’t a one-off, either.
Strongest on the superbike and, unsurprisingly given his pace in the British Supersport series so far this year, the Honda CBR600 in the supersport class, his move to ditch the supertwins and focus on six races rather than eight means he’s come out of a weather-disrupted practice week looking a little more prepared than his rivals across the board.
However, we’ve seen Harrison perhaps a little less able to convert fast practice times and incredible opening laps in races into wins before, and while he might be on paper the pre-race favourite in four races, he’s going to have to back that up when he gets the tap on the shoulder to drop down Glencrutchery Road in anger on Monday afternoon for the first time.
A late flourish of speed from Davey Todd
It’s taken right until the very end of practice week for us to see much in the way of form from reigning Senior TT race winner Davey Todd, as he struggled to find a way to get the 8Ten Racing BMW superbike and superstock machines working around the TT course.
But it seems like they found something on the penultimate night, as he told The Race afterwards, and Sunday’s final session very much looked like the final confirmation that he needed that the brand new 2025 BMW M1000RR machines are now working the way he wants them to.
Concentrating on them has, of course, taken some of the focus off the smaller bikes, and it definitely feels like he’s sacrificed something on the Padgett’s Racing supersport and supertwin machines. But that might be something that there’s time to pick up on once race week gets underway and he starts to find more time to concentrate on them one at a time.
For now, he starts racing likely the favourite in the superstock class given what he’s shown so far, but he’s perhaps a little more of an underdog than he’d hoped to be in the superbikes.
Michael Dunlop is playing his cards close to his chest
As usual, it’s hard to read too much into Michael Dunlop’s form at the TT so far, given that he’s normally not one for making too much of a statement in practice and generally doesn’t engage with the media at all.
He’s been slower than many of his rivals, with no real big headline laps so far from him on his new BMW superbike and superstock and Ducati supersport combination for 2025 - although it’s telling of what we’ve come to expect from him that there’s still a suggestion floating around that his old tried and tested Yamaha R6 is in the back of the van for the supersport race should he find his new Italian machine not quite up to spec.
Even his fastest lap of practice - his last lap of the week - was cut short as riders were flagged into pitlane at the very end of the session, meaning that we’ve not really got an idea of how fast he is, and he hasn’t shown his cards in the other classes either.
But a little bit of confusion over his level and his intentions is exactly the way Dunlop likes things. He went into race day at the North West 200 with a similar air of mystery around his level - and came out of it with his best results at the event in a decade. It’s simply impossible to rule the most successful TT racer of all time out of contention until we see him go down Bray Hill in anger.
The Crowe brothers will be hard to beat
No class has been as hard hit by the unpredictable weather at this year’s TT as the sidecars, with the bare minimum of dry track time for the three wheelers to ensure that the grid can all qualify - but even despite that, it’s been Ryan and Callum Crowe who have absolutely dominated practice with lap record pace
And, with their biggest rivals Peter Founds and Jevan Walmsley the second big names after Peter Hickman to likely sit out race week following a practice crash, it’s hard to see anyone coming close to challenging them.
It’s former class master Ben Birchall and new passenger Patrick Rosney who’s been closest to them in the absence of Founds and Walmsley - but even then, they’re over 30 seconds a lap slower as they struggle with top speed issues in particular.
In fact, the biggest rival that the Crowe brothers are likely to have is the course itself. Notoriously hard on sidecar engines thanks to the extra weight of a passenger they have to carry combined with incredible grip that means that two thirds of the 37.73 miles is spent on a fully open throttle, it looks like it’ll take technical problems to deny them wins and maybe even a new lap record.
The event will be poorer without Peter Hickman
Coming into this year’s event, one of the biggest headlines was the rivalry between Michael Dunlop and new 8Ten Racing team-mates and team co-owners Peter Hickman and Davey Todd, something that was thrown into sixth gear following a high-profile row between the trio at the North West 200 when Dunlop won the opening superbike race and Hickman vowed to never again return to the Northern Irish event.
Fourteen-time TT winner Hickman had been quiet throughout practice week, but it finally looked like he was about to pull the pin on Friday night and show us what he was really capable of - only for his season to come to a premature end when he crashed out at Kerrowmoar.
Though escaping relatively unscathed given the speed of the corner, it nonetheless means we’re not going to see him in action at TT 2025, denying us the chance for what on paper should have been a magnificent four-way showdown in the superbike class between him, Todd, Dunlop and Harrison.
