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 winner Davey Todd.

The TT record holder endured a tricky practice week on his n✤ew BMW Superbike machine, but still came into the opening race of the 2025 event on Monday a꧒s a main favourite.

Dunlop pushed eventua🌊l winner Todd hard across the four-♐lap contest, getting the 8TEN BMW rider’s lead down to as low as 0.269s at th🔜e start of the final tour.

Expecting a “second breath” on the f꧒inal 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 Dཧean Harrison didn’t come at “the right place” which meant he “lost all momentum” at that section.

Dropping 2.271s behind Todd on corrected time at this point, Dunlop produced ℱa 135.416mph🔯 to end up just 1.296s adrift at the chequered flag.

Asked 🔜by TT+ if he was happy with a second-place, Dunloꦜp 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 start꧟ed dropping seconds.

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

“But it’s just t⭕he way it is. I’m not sure whওat we can do to cure the issue we’ve now got.

“But it was a tough race, I knewꦇ it was going to be, but the boys h🀅ave done a good job.

“We’ve g💫one from having really, really awful lap times in practice where we struggled, to now be doing 40 seconds a lap quicker.

🌟“Sಌo, we’ve 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 technically the same as last year, so we’ve been struggling a little bꦯit this week.

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

“I just got caught with Dean. I took too long to pass him s🦄omewhere and when I did pass him it didn’t really suit where I did pass him.

“It was꧒n’t the right place and I lost all momentum. But it🦋’s just the way it goes.”

D♓unlop later claimed a 30th TT victory in the three-la☂p Supersport race on his first start on thඣe island on his D🔯ucati Panigale V2.