Motorpoint British Supersport Championship contenders Alastair Seeley and Glenn Irwin began the weekend on a positive note at Assen on Friday.

The legendary Dutch circuit hosts the opening round of the MCE British Superbike Showdown, but the battle for Supersport honours is equally enthralling with Smiths Triumph rider Billy McConnell leading team-mate Graeme Gowland by a single point.

Mar-Train Racing’s Seeley is holding third position overall, 59 points down on McConnell and only 10 ahead of fellow Carrick man Irwin, who achieved his first dry weather victory of the season last time out at Donington Park and his third win of the campaign on the Gearlink Kawasaki.

Seeley has struggled at some tracks on the Yamaha R6 and lost valuable points after crashing out of race two at Donington.

However, his prediction that the fast, flowing nature of Assen would be better suited to the Yamaha appeared to ring true as the 34-year-old headed the first free practice session by a whisker from Gowland with a lap of 1m 40.167s, with Irwin fourth quickest.

Gowland upped the ante in FP2 to set the fastest time of the day (1m 39.767s) and although Seeley dropped to fourth on the times, his lap from opening practice left him second fastest on the combined leaderboard.

Qualifying takes place on Saturday morning to determine grid positions for the 12-lap Sprint race in the afternoon (5.10pm UK time) and both Seeley and Irwin will be gunning for a front row start.

Tyco Suzuki’s John Hopkins headed the times (1m 37.472s) ahead of the BSB Showdown opener from title hopeful Ryuichi Kiyonari on the Buildbase BMW (1m 37.665s), with championship leader Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne third fastest in FP2, lapping in 1m 37.786s.

Hopkins failed to break into the Showdown top six but will be desperate to scale the podium for the Northern Ireland team after a hugely disappointing season.

Byrne has a 26-point advantage over Milwaukee Yamaha’s Josh Brookes, with Kiyonari only a further point behind in third.

In the Ducati TriOptions Cup class, Marty Nutt qualified third fastest for Saturday’s opening race.



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