Glenn Irwin made a flying start to the North West 200 when unofficially breaking the course lap record in the opening Superbike practice on Wednesday morning. 

Direct from completing a hat-trick of wins on the Hager PBM Ducati in the British Superbike meeting at Oulton Park over the bank holiday weekend, the Ulsterman was precisely two tenths of a second inside Peter Hickman’s official standard of 4min 18.753sec set in 2022. 

Davey Todd was 1.357s down on the TAS BMW, followed by Michael Dunlop (Hawk BMW) at another 2.9s, then Hickman, Dean Harrison and Ian Hutchinson. 

Conor Cummins was 10th quickest on the Padgett’s Honda, with Mikey Evans 19th, Nathan Harrison 21st quickest (in his first official outing since crashing at the same event last year), newcomer Marcus Simpson 26th, Tony Redmond 31st and Paul Cassidy 49th. 

Todd topped the Superstock standings with a lap of 4:20.942, followed at 0.58s by Dean Harrison, then Dunlop, Hickman and John McGuinness. Cummins was 10th best, Evans 12th, Nathan Harrison 18th, Simpson 21st, Redmond 33rd and Cassidy 45th. 

Englishman Richard Cooper, who has his sights set on four wins this week at the Portrush meeting, was quickest in the Supersport class, 0.8s ahead of Todd’s Ducati V2, followed at another 4.6s by Dunlop, Mike Browne and Hickman. 

Evans was eighth best, 1.27s up on Cummins, Simpson 23rd and Gareth Arnold 49th. 

The Supertwin session was red-flagged after an incident at Mill Road roundabout. It was not restarted as the session ran out of road closure time. 

Veteran former GP ace Jeremy McWilliams was on the pace right from the off with an unofficial lap record time of 5m 02.185s, four tenths of a second up on Adam McLean, with Michael Sweeney at another 1.4s. 

Arnold was the best local, 10th quickest, followed by Redmond 19th and Dave Madsen-Mygdal 23rd.