Davey Todd has expressed his frustrations at being forced to settle for second best to Michael Dunlop in the Supertwin TT class, claiming he is not on equal machinery to his rival despite assurances he would be.

Todd - a winner earlier in the week in the Superbike TT race - was considered a significant threat to Dunlop in the Supertwin TT class after teaming up with Clive Padgett’s team and taking delivery of a Paton S1-R from the factory.

As the machine that propelled Dunlop to multiple victories in Supertwin TT category in recent years, Todd was confident of mounting a challenge to the Ulsterman’s superiority in the class.

However, he’d go on to labour down in fifth place in race one and while a big step forward between events allowed him give a feisty chase to Dunlop en route to second in race two, Todd was in no doubt that he was at his maximum and therefore questions what made the difference between the two riders.

Speaking to TT+ in the aftermath of the race, though Todd says he was ‘stoked’ with P2, he speculates that Paton reserved a superior machine for Dunlop.

“I rode that thing so hard,” he said. “After the first twin race we were all just super disappointed.

“Clive bought that Paton from the factory and it was meant to be the same as Michael’s bike, and it’s most definitely not. I don’t think they wanted to give away all the secrets. 

“So, Clive has worked his butt off to develop that bike and improve it from the first race, and I pulled my finger out.

“I thought I was riding it hard in the first one, but apparently there’s a lot of corners here you can take flat that I never knew about.

“Grateful to the Padgetts team for giving me this opportunity and spending all that money on a bike that wasn’t cracked up to what it was supposed to be.

“And they worked so hard to improve it. I’m just super glad to be able to stick it on the podium. I’m stoked with P2. Michael on that factory bike, we’ve absolutely no chance of getting there.”