2025 IOMTT
SuperTwin TT Race Two
Michael Dunlop notched up TT win number 33 in Friday evening’s Entire cover insurance Supertwins TT at the 2025 Isle of Man TT.
It was the fourth victory of the week for Dunlop, which means the 36-year-old has now scored no less than five quadruples over the course of his career. Three of those have come back-to-back since 2023. This one, however, will be remembered as ‘The Italian job’ for Michael has scored a double apiece for Ducati and Paton in 2025. The question now is, can he equal Ian Hutchinson’s five-timer from 2010 in tomorrow’s Senior?
The race itself was a relatively uneventful affair in terms of the battle for the victory. As expected, a Dunlop victory never looked in doubt.
Before it all began, Michael was noted to be gazing nervously down the Glencrutchery Road. However, there were no signs of nerves once he got away. He immediately streaked off into the lead, 3s up on Davey Todd on the Milenco Paton at Glen Helen on lap one.
After all the emotional highs of Tuesday evening’s race (when Mikey Evans finished second), Evans came back down to earth with a bump as his Dafabet Kawasaki was reported as touring and out of the race just minutes after he left the line.
Adam McLean was unexpectedly in third in those early stages, ahead of Rob Hodson, Dominic Herbertson and Mike Browne. Baz Furber was in seventh and the slow starting Paul Jordan in eighth. Jordan would later say he was struggling to transition from the 1000 cc Fireblade he had raced earlier in the day.
Dunlop added a few seconds to his lead at every checkpoint and by the time they pitted at the end of the lap, he enjoyed a 12s advantage over Todd.
But he would lose a few at the stop as the Padgetts team executed an exemplary job on their black and yellow Paton and sent the number 8 machine back out in a flash.
However, Dunlop had plenty more in reserve it seemed and once he got a board telling him that the lead was down to 9s, he began stretching the legs of his own S1-R and pulled 5s seconds by Ramsey. Micky-D did enough to maintain that advantage over the mountain and heading onto the third and final circuit, he had a 14.5s cushion with Todd trying all he knew.
But no matter how hard Todd tried, it wasn’t enough. Dunlop pulled another 10s over the last lap to win by 26s, breaking the lap record in the process despite not needing to.
It was the first 123 mph lap on a Supertwin around the Isle of Man ever recorded; you’d have to wonder what Dunlop could manage if he was pushed in a competitive race.
Sadly, Peter Hickman was a non-starter due to his heavy practice crash last week. So, we’ll have to wait to see Hicky back on the Swan Yamaha in 12 months’ time to find out.
Dominic Herbertson claimed a popular third (on the Mowbary Paton) after a hard race, fighting it out on the timesheets. He had been lying fifth at the end of lap 1, behind Rob Hodson and Mike Browne. But Browne had a poor pitstop and fell back to sixth and Hodson’s Paton retired just after the Gooseneck on lap 2, leaving the way clear for Herbertson to takeover third.
While Browne regrouped and attempted a comeback, Paul Jordan was making moves further back. Jordan had started at number 1 and led on the road until Dunlop caught and passed him about a third of the way into the final lap.
Jordan upped his pace and clung to the back tyre of Michael’s number six machine. Not forgetting, Michael was on the fastest ever Twins lap recorded, Jordan did admirably well to valiantly hold onto his fellow countryman.
He did so right until the flag and it pulled him up the leader board and towards the podium. But alas, with Paul parked at the top of the return road waiting to learn his fate, in the end, the late starting Herbertson had just done enough to keep Jordan at bay. The Jackson racing Aprilia was waved on past while Dominic was ushered into the winner’s enclosure. It was PJ’s third fourth-place finish in a matter of days; something he said was ‘hard to take’. But he’ll be back next year hungrier than ever.
However, the headlines were all about Dunlop and his 33rd win and the Ballymoney man had this to say.
Michael Dunlop
“It’s nice that’s three Patons in here (the winner’s enclosure). People always say I win cause I’m on a Paton. But now everybody else is on one so… They are a great wee bike and thanks to Stefano. The wee bike’s been mint. That’s a double win once again for Paton. And that’s four this week once again (for Michael) is a bit of an achievement, so I’m happy. We’ll just keep going (tomorrow in the Senior), see what we’re made of.”
But Davey Todd lamented the performance of his Paton compared to Michael’s.
Davey Todd
“We’re never going to compete with that thing. Not taking anything away, Michael is riding it superb. I don’t want to say too much. Clive (Padgett) bought the bike from Paton on the premise that we’d get exactly the same bike as Michael which we’ve definitely not got. But Clive’s definitely done a lot of work on the original bike we got from Paton to improve it and he’s done a great job.”
Dominic Herbertson was absolutely delighted to bank his second podium in two years and was ‘Absolutely over the moon’. Herbertson had had the rug pulled from under him in the lead up to this year’s TT when the WTF team had a sponsor pull out, leaving them without an operating budget.
Dom has scrimped and borrowed to get racing on the island this year and while it hasn’t been an easy run at times, (he’s described himself like a ‘badger on a bypass’ earlier in the week)… this podium will have made it all worthwhile.
Sadly, in the aftermath of it all, news began to filter through that Michael Rutter had crashed at the 31st Milestone and had been airlifted to Nobles hospital. A statement advised that he is conscious, breathing and stable. We can only hope for a positive outcome for the 53 year-old.
SuperTwin TT Race Two Results
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