Isle of Man TT star Davey Todd reflects on 2025 road racing season with Macau Grand Prix bid still to come - 'Our main goal is always those big bike races'
Davey Todd still has November’s Macau Grand Prix to come in southern China to close out the major road racing season, but the English rider can reflect on a successful year between the hedges with a sense of pride.
Todd and fellow top Isle of Man TT rider Peter Hickman formed their own team, 8TEN Racing BMW, after parting company from Faye Ho’s FHO Racing at the beginning of the 2025 season, leaving both facing an uphill battle to be fully prepared for the North West 200 in May.
It was a new type of challenge for 30-year-old Todd, but the Saltburn man overcame adversity to register a long-coveted Superbike victory at the north coast road race in the opening race, and completed a treble with a Superstock success and victory in the blue riband Superbike finale around the 8.9-mile ‘Triangle’ course.
At the TT, Todd won the Superbike race but was left bitterly disappointed after he was unable to defend the Senior trophy he won for the first time in 2024.
More Isle of Man plaudits followed at the Southern 100 in July, where Todd was crowned Solo Champion for the third time as part of a four-timer after winning the headline Superbike race from Dean Harrison, setting a new outright lap record for the Billown course at 117.414mph in the process.
He missed the Armoy Road Races in Co Antrim later in July due to a date clash with the British Superbike round at Brands Hatch, but Todd once again underlined why he has become one of the biggest talents in road racing.
“On the road racing front, it’s been a good year,” said Todd. “I can’t honestly ask for any more, but of course we were disappointed that the Senior didn’t run.
“Our main goal at the roads is always going to be those big bike races – the Superbike race and the Senior – and getting that Superbike win at the TT was massive for us.
“It was something that was so tough with us setting up our own team and with it being so last minute, and at certain times it was concerning to look forward and think we might not even be there.
“So to end up winning the Superbike race (at the TT), winning a few races at the North West, winning the Southern 100 for the third time, was something super pleasing for me.
“It was a real shame I couldn’t get to Armoy because the dates clashed there and it would’ve been fantastic to get there as well.
“When you actually sit and look at everything we’ve had a relatively good year, a successful year, and if it wasn’t for the BSB season, that’s the only way you could look at it in a different way because it’s been so challenging,” he added.
But it’s no fault of the team’s, the bike or the riders at BSB. Unfortunately it’s down to the BSB rules [regarding electronics] and how they’re laid out at the moment, which massively hinders anybody riding a BMW motorcycle.
“I know we’re working on trying to even things up for next year, to make the championship a little bit more fair, let’s say.”
Another highlight for Todd this year was his opportunity to race at the legendary Suzuka 8-Hours with the Autorace Ube BMW team, where he finished sixth on his debut at the iconic Japanese circuit.
“I showed that I could also do it on short circuits when I got the opportunity to go to Suzuka for my first time,” said Todd.
“Finishing the race there in sixth position was a massive achievement for me; to be even going there and getting the invite to go and race on that track with the calibre of riders there was incredible. I was stoked to get the opportunity, and not only that, to ride for the team that I did and to finish in sixth position.
“I proved a lot of people wrong who were saying I can’t ride a Superbike from what’s been going on at BSB, because I was on a BMW Superbike at Suzuka where I was on normal spec instead of BSB spec.
“We’re fighting with one arm tied behind our back at the moment [in BSB] which is obviously incredibly frustrating and it's making the bike and us look bad, when that’s not the case at all; it’s a fantastic bike, as you can see on the roads and everywhere else in the world – World Superbikes, America, Spain, Germany – the BMWs are up at the front and the only place in the world that it’s not is at BSB, so I think that says enough.”
Todd and his 8TEN Racing team-mate Peter Hickman – who missed a big part of this season through injury following a crash in qualifying at the TT – are the two big favourites for victory at the Macau Motorcycle Grand Prix, which takes place from November 13-16.