Ducati back on top after 30 years

Supersport success is first since 1995, and just their ninth TT win overall.

Ducati may be the world’s most successful motorcycle racing brand, dominating MotoGP and regularly winning in WorldSBK, but they’re not the most frequent visitors to the TT’s top step.

Michael Dunlop’s win in this week’s opening Monster Energy Supersport TT marked the first time the Italian brand has won on the island in 30 years, although it is fair to say they’ve not featured in too many races in that time.

^{Supermono was a work of art photo courtesy of Chuck Schultz Wikipedia.}

The first Ducati to enter a TT came in 1958. The Ultra Lightweight TT was part of the 125cc Grand Prix world championship (now the Moto3 class) and Ducati riders took second, third and fourth (behind eventual world champion Carlo Ubbiali on an MV Agusta) on a race which took place on the 10.97-mile Clypse Course, the shorter track on which smaller bikes raced in the late ‘50s.

It would be more than a decade before a Ducati rider would top a TT rostrum, when Mike Rogers rode his Ducati Mach 1 to his one and only win on the Mountain course. He took the honours in the 1969 250cc Production TT, a race Chas Mortimer won on a similar machine the following year.

Ducati’s next TT win would be their most famous. Mike Hailwood was commonly regarded as the greatest bike racer of his era but quit the sport to go and race cars at the end of the 1960s, even going on to race in Formula One cars.

After 11 years out, he stunned the world by making a two-wheeled comeback at the 1978 Isle of Man TT races – competing on an unfancied Ducati 900SS of all things. Mike the Bike won his 13^th TT with victory in the Formula One race – an event surrounded in folklore not just for the Ducatisti, but for all TT fans.

Ducati’s next four TT wins came from Tony Rutter, who dominated the Formula Two races in the early ‘80s on his 750 TT1. Tony’s son Michael was one of a handful of riders to score a podium on the iconic 916 superbike, but none were able to stand on the top step of the box.

Iain Duffus was second in the 1995 Senior TT on a 916, and Rutter Junior was third in the 1996 Formula One TT. John McGuinness also came close on a 998 (the final evolution of the 916) with a second and third at the 2003 TT, but the last success for a Ducati (before Dunlop’s win at TT 2025) came from Kiwi Robert Holden in 1995.

Singles racing was a bit of a thing in the ‘90s (all bikes were powered by single cylinder engines) and Ducati built a supertrick limited edition racer called the Supermono to compete in the various races around the world.

The Singles TT ran only between 1994 and 2000 (and at the first two TTs, in 1907 and 1908 if you want to be exact) and Holden’s success marked his only TT win, as he sadly died in a crash at the following year’s TT.

Michael Dunlop had actually been slated to ride a Ducati Panigale V4R in the big bike races at the 2020 TT, but the event never happened due to the Covid pandemic. It would be 2025 before he would finally throw his leg over one of the Italian stallions, and the Panigale V2 would power him to his 30^th TT win. It marked success with a seventh different manufacturer for ‘The Bull’.

Rival Davey Todd had debuted the Panigale V2 at TT 2024, the bike being allowed to compete alongside the traditional 600cc fours under the Next Generation rules which sees bikes as diverse as the old Suzuki GSX-R750 compete with faired Triumph Street Triples and the Yamaha R9s, as well as the 955cc Panigale and the 600s.

Todd scored a second and third place, behind Dunlop on the 600cc Yamaha R6, but when the Italian factory decided to offer its support it went to Dunlop, the most successful TT rider of all time.

It may have taken Ducati nearly 70 years to win their ninth TT, but we expect the Bologna Bullets to be a force to be reckoned with on the island for the next few years.

The Panigale V2 is now established as a benchmark bike in the Supersport class, and with a new Panigale V4R hitting showrooms next year, we can but dream of a Ducati challenging for honours in the big bike classes too.