Veteran Isle of Man TT team explain bike U-turn before Ducati commitment

Burrows Engineering will run a Ducati for Conor Cummins at the 2025 Isle of Man TT.

New signing Cummins will ride a Panigale V2 in the Supersport class at the TT and the North West 200.

But his team almost opted for completely different machinery for 2025.

“The Ducati is tried, tested and proven in both disciplines of racing and I felt it was the best package to go with for Conor,” team owner John Burrows told the Belfast Telegraph.

“Ducati is an iconic brand and I’m looking forward to running it in 2025.

“We have campaigned the R6 for a long time and I felt as if we needed a new challenge and to make our way into the new generation Supersport machines.

“In racing things change fast and you have to run with the times.

“I had initially thought about running the new Yamaha R9, but again that would have been an unproven package and logistically with timings it might have arrived too close to our important races next year.”

Cummins split with Honda-backed Milenco by Padgett’s team midway through last year’s Isle of Man TT.

As well as his new Ducati machinery for 2025, he will have a BMW M1000RR machinery for the Superbike and Supersport classes.

Cummins already has 12 TT podiums to his name.

He previously said about riding a Ducati in 2025: “I am really excited about riding the Ducati V2, it will be the first time I’ve ridden a Ducati and it makes me excited for a couple of reasons.

“Ducati is an iconic brand within motorcycling and they always turn heads with how cool they look so that is one element.

“The second reason and the most important being that I think the Ducati will really benefit me in the way it rides.

“Coming from conventional 4 cylinder 600cc machines I’ve felt that the initial punch off the turn is somewhere I’ve always been compromised because of my stature, but with the twin cylinder Ducati being very strong in the lower rev range I feel that will be a big benefit to my riding.”