Peter Hickman knocked Laxey resident Dean Harrison off provisional pole for the Superbike class of the North West 200 with a late surge in the opening qualifying session on Wednesday morning.

Harrison was quickest early on with the Honda Racing Fireblade, but Hickman banged in a late lap of 4min 25.271sec (121.732mph) to go top by 0.759 of a second on his 8TEN Racing BMW.

Harrison was clocked at 204mph through the speed trap on the run to University corner.

Alastair Seeley was third quickest overall and fellow Ulsterman Paul Jordan fourth in front of Finland’s Erno Kostamo, Jamie Coward and Michael Dunlop.

Michael Sweeney, John McGuinness and Onchan’s Nathan Harrison rounded off the top 10, the latter half a second up on Conor Cummins in 11th.

Other Manxmen in the class are Mikey Evans 17th quickest, Marcus Simpson (41st), Joe Yeardsley (43rd) and Paul Cassidy (58th).

New Zealand Superbike champion Mitch Rees was an impressive 15th quickest after his initial four laps of the course. He makes his TT debut later this month.

The session was cut short by a couple of red flag incidents and oil on the track.

The following Supersport session was also halted because of further issues with oil spillage, but ultimately five laps were completed by the bulk of the field.

Englishman Richard Cooper produced the quickest lap in 4:36.484, followed by Dean Harrison, Michael Dunlop on the Ducati V2 Panigale, Hickman, Josh Brookes and Mike Browne.

Leading Manxman was Cummins (11th quickest), Evans (13th), Nathan Harrison (16th) and Jamie Cringle (35th).

Qualifying continues on Thursday, with roads closed between 9am and 3pm, with the first races scheduled for the evening slot (4.45pm – 9pm).

Saturday is the main race day with roads closed from 9am until no later than 7pm. Reports in next Tuesday’s Isle of Man Examiner.