William Dunlop on the Wilson Craig backed Honda's, completed a highly successful final practice season for Saturday's Relentless International North West 200 in Northern Ireland, with Dunlop taking top ten positions in the three class's, Superbike, Supersport 600, and Superstock.

After a very successful Tuesday night practice, Dunlop upped the pace in Thursday practice, to climb into fifth fastest times in both the Supersport 600 and Superstock categories, and then managed to shave eight seconds of his best Superbike time from Tuesday to end the combined qualifying in 9th place just behind Kiwi Bruce Anstey. Just over fives seconds separated the top ten in Superbike qualifying, with the scene set for a great race in the big bike class.

In near perfect conditions, Dunlop managed to take in 30 qualifying laps on the Wilson Craig Honda's and has set himself up nicely for Saturdays big races, where 80,000 high speed race fans are expected to attend.

William Dunlop:

"I am very satisfied with how practice has gone, and lets hope we can carry that through on race day. My lap times are quite good in all class's, but I suppose I would have liked to have been further up in the Superbike practice. Its all down to race day now, but with the weather forecast for rain on Saturday, that could scupper all the lap times up in the air, so we will just have to wait and see"




Superbike:

1 = Michael Rutter Bathams Ducati 121.245mph
2 = Martin Jessopp Bathams Ducati 120.986mph
3 = Michael Dunlop Street Sweep Kawasaki 120.791mph
4 = Guy Martin Relentless Suzuki 120.008mph
5 = Cameron Donald Wilson Craig Honda 119.943mph
6 = Gary Johnson East Coast Honda 119.414mph
9 = William Dunlop Wilson Craig Honda 118.441mph


Superstock:

1 =Alastair Seeley Relentless Suzuki 119.706mph
2 = Michael Dunlop Street Sweep Kawasaki 119.328mph
3 = Michael Rutter Bathams Ducati 118.039mph
4 = Gary Johnson East Coast Honda 117.993mph
5 = William Dunlop Wilson Craig Honda 117.247mph
6 = Ryan Farquhar KMR Kawasaki 116.972mph


Supersport 600:

1 = Alastair Seeley Relentless Suzuki 115.937mph
2 = Gary Johnson East Coast Honda 115.437mph
3 = Michael Dunlop Street Sweep Yamaha 115.149mph
4 = Bruce Anstey Padgetts Honda 114.417mph
5 = William Dunlop Wilson Craig Honda 114.295mph
6 = Cameron Donald Wilson Craig Honda 113.812mph


Picture by Alan Armstrong