In an interview with BBC Sport in Northern Ireland, Dunlop says his 2014 road-racing season is in serious doubt as he has been unable to come to a contract extension with Honda. The 24 year old, however, says it’s not about money.
"It's definitely not about money,” Dunlop told the BBC. “When you are dealing with contracts [in road racing], you are arguing over a couple of hundred pounds. Also, I don't need any more publicity. I do my talking on the track.
Dunlop also admitted to the BBC that he has struggled for motivation in recent months.
"At this moment in time, nothing has come up that fulfills what I want to do,” he said. "Also, I need to make sure that I'm going to enjoy myself so those factors are really my reasoning."
But he says he’s definitely not retiring.
"There's a difference between retirement and thinking if it's not going to work [for 2014], that it's not going to work,” he said. “That's why I didn't want to make a big deal of it but everybody else seems to have done that."
Dunlop is the youngest in a long line of road racing heroes. His uncle Joey Dunlop was the most successful racer in Isle of Man TT history with 26 wins and his brother Robert won five TTs. Both were killed in racing accidents with Joey passing away from a crash in Estonia and Robert dying at the 2008 North West 200.
"People say it's a dangerous sport and that you are mad in the head and if I'm honest, yeah, I have a little touch in the head and I'm probably not the full square,” Dunlop told the BBC. "But at the end of the day, I'm not battering women or taking drugs. I'll never be another Joey Dunlop or a Robert Dunlop. They were special men in special times. I'm Michael and that's who I am going to be."
