The 2016 North West 200 got underway this week in glorious conditions around the 8.9-mile Northern Irish circuit. After the practice and qualifying sessions Honda Racing’s John McGuinness and Conor Cummins will start Saturday’s Superbike races from eighth and 12th on the grid.

On Tuesday (10 May) the NW200 kicked off with the first Superbike practice. McGuinness, for the first time at the circuit, clocked over 200mph through the speed trap aboard his Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade SP machine and finished the session fourth fastest.

This afternoon it was looking hopeful for the Morecambe-missile, who in the early stages was running in third place. However, halfway through McGuinness made an unscheduled stop as his machine was overheating, which after inspection was caused from a large stone hitting the radiator.

A quick turn around saw the machine repaired, but the session was red flagged and stopped due to an incident on the circuit. McGuinness’s combined times place him eighth on the grid.

Meanwhile team-mate Cummins enjoyed a positive opening session on Tuesday and finished the day in eighth place. Today’s session saw a few small grip issues for the Manxman and with limited track time due to mid-session changes, and the red flag ending proceedings, he finished 19th. The combined session times see Cummins 12th on the grid for the Superbike races.

The schedule for Saturday (14 May) is below, with roads closing at 0930hrs BST.

Supersport race (6 laps)
Superbike race 1 (7 laps)
Supertwin race (4 laps)
Superstock race (6 laps)
Superbike race 2 (7 laps)

Jonny Twelvetrees - Assistant team manager

It’s been a really good show from our guys so far and I’m pleased how they’re both going, on Tuesday they came back fourth and eighth fastest overall. John managed to crack the magic 200mph barrier, which we were all really pleased with. Today the sun is shining again and both riders were making really good progress, but towards the end John had a stone crack the radiator, which made a nice hole, but we got it changed and just as we were heading out again the session was unfortunately red flagged.

Conor had also been going well and has recorded some good times, in today's session the team were working on some small changes, which if we'd had more track time would have proved strong. We’re positive for Saturday’s races now and just hope the good weather continues and we get two strong races.

John McGuinness 1

Tuesday was awesome! We did over 200mph, which I am still really pumped about. To do that felt so good; we were right in the mix and really competitive throughout the session. Today we made some small changes, maybe we didn’t go in the right direction with, but we had to try something. Halfway round I collected a massive hole in the radiator from a stone hit, I’ve never seen anything like it before, but these Superbikes have over 200bhp, so tear up the road a little! I am a little disappointed with that as I was running third at the time, but it comes with road racing. Now to refocus and regroup ahead of the races on Saturday.

Conor Cummins 10

The conditions so far this week at the North West 200 have been outstanding, it's so nice to be here and get some good weather and a dry track. Tuesday was positive and I finished eighth overall, which was good and had some good times. Unfortunately today I didn't get the chance for a good lap, the session was red flagged just as we were about to go out again after making some changes. The changes that we'd made I feel would have been really positive, so was a shame we couldn't try those and try to improve on the lap times. But I am 12th on the grid for Saturday's races on the fourth row, which isn't too bad. I just hope we can pull it together for the race now and looking forward to getting out there and seeing what we can do.