Michael Dunlop scored a double victory on the first evening of racing at the North West 200 on Thursday.

Davey Todd won the opening Superbike race on the new 8TEN Racing BMW, but thereafter Dunlop led the charge in both the Supersport and Superstock events in near-perfect conditions over the 8.97-mile Triangle course.

The Superbike event was close with Laxey resident Dean Harrison pushing Todd hard throughout on the Honda Racing UK Fireblade. At the close the two were separated by 0.2 of a second, with Todd claiming his first Superbike win on the course (dominated in recent editions by Glenn Irwin, who is not racing this year’s event). Peter Hickman was third at a further 1.4s and Dunlop fourth on the Hawk Racing BMW at another half a second.

Ian Hutchinson rode well for fifth ahead of Jamie Coward, Erno Kostamo and John McGuinness.

Best of a strong field of Manxmen was Nathan Harrison in 11th (with his best lap of the course to date), followed by Conor Cummins 13th (who was docked 10 seconds for overshooting the chicane at Juniper Hill close to the finish on the last lap). Mikey Evans was 14th and Marcus Simpson 15th, with Paul Cassidy 41st.

A few hours after being high-sided from his new new Ducati V2 Panigale, Dunlop chalked up his first win at his home course since 2016 when he piloted the same bike to success in the four-lap Supersport race.

He crossed the finish line 0.378s in front of Englishman Richard Cooper on the Yamaha R6, followed by Todd and Dean Harrison on a brace of Honda CBRs. Dunlop broke the class lap record with a time of 4min 32.162sec.

The first Triumph was Hickman’s in fifth spot, while the Manx charge was this time led by Evans and Nathan Harrison in 16th and 17th, with Cummins 22nd and Jamie Cringle 25th. Cummins had a 10 second penalty for missing the chicane at Mathers Cross on lap one.

Todd looked to be on for a big bike double in the Superstock race until he overshot University corner on lap three, enabling Dunlop to go up the inside into the lead. Dean Harrison pushed hard, but Dunlop threw in a quick final lap to take the win on his MD Racing BMW by 2.6s, with Hutchinson third after Hickman messed up one of the chicanes.

Hicky had to settle for fifth at the flag behind team-mate Todd. Josh Brookes and Cummins (Burrows Engineering BMW) and Evans (Dafabet Racing Honda) had a good battle for seventh and eighth in front of McGuinness.

Simpson was also well in the mix in 13th on the WH Racing powered by Dynobike Honda, but it was a disappointing night for Joe Yeardsley whose mechanical problems during qualifying continued to plague him.

A full day of racing on Saturday kicks off at 10am with the first of two Supertwin races.