By Picturesque blue skies, the sun beaming down onto the grandstand, coast roads, improving conditions, the scene was set for captivating big bike competition.
After the remainder of Supersport Q2 was cancelled, following an incident at Church Corner involving Lee Johnston, whom we at Road Racing News wish a very speedy recovery, a reduced twenty-five minute plus session was in prospect for ‘Big Bike’ exponents.
Glenn Irwin, Josh Brookes, James Hillier we’re first to power into Portstewart, York Corner.
Milwaukee BMW’s Alastair Seeley quickly usurped Michael Dunlop’s table topping lap from Tuesday, going into provisional pole courtesy of a 4:21.613 seconds lap time.
Seeley’s next lap saw him circulate the illustrious Triangle course, in sub 4 minutes 21 seconds, (4:20.634 – 123.898 mph).
This gave him at the time an advantage of 2.816 seconds over previous provisional pole sitter Dunlop.
Just as closing session stages beckoned, the session was red flagged, due to an incident at Metropole.
At the time of the red-flag, the Superbike Q2 top ten was declared overall qualifying winner Seeley, world’s fastest road racer Peter Hickman (4:22.449), DAO Racing’s Dean Harrison (4:23.150), 21 times TT winner Dunlop (4:23.450), Davey Todd (4:24.317).
Josh Brookes (4:24.672), BeerMonster Ducati’s Glenn Irwin, Conor Cummins, top NW200 newcomer Michael Browne, Honda Racing UK’s John McGuinness MBE.
Superbike Q2 Result, reads as follows:
1st – Alastair Seeley – 4:20.634
2nd – Peter Hickman – 4:22.449
3rd – Dean Harrison – 4:23.150
4th – Michael Dunlop – 4:23.450
5th – Davey Todd – 4:24.317
6th – Josh Brookes – 4:24.672
7th – Glenn Irwin – 4:24.887
8th – Conor Cummins – 4:25.532
9th – Michael Browne – 4:28.520
10th – John McGuinness MBE – 4:28.846
11th – James Hillier – 4:31.056
12th – Michael Rutter – 4:31.163
13th – Nathan Harrison – 4:31.491
14th – Michael Sweeney – 4:32.538
15th – Adam McLean – 4:33.067
16th – David Datzer – 4:34.235
17th – Craig Neve – 4:34.652
18th – Sam West – 4:34.983
19th – Erno Kostamo – 4:35.241
20th – Brian McCormack – 4:35.658
21st – Paul Jordan – 4:37.836
22nd – Gary McCoy – 4:39.879
23rd – Lukas Maurer – 4:40.503
24th – Emmett O’Grady – 4:41.936
25th – Leon Jeacock – 4:42.897
26th – Eddy Ferre – 4:43.734
27th – James Chawke – 4:44.717
28th – Kamil Holan – 4:44.740
29th – Matthieu Lagrive – 4:44.867
30th – Jonathan Perry – 4:46.913
Photo credit: Tommy Vennard
Words by Stevie Rial #dontletfearcontrolyou
