Alastair Seeley’s time of 4'37.073 from Tuesday afternoon was good enough for him to hold on to pole position for the two Supersport races at the International North West 200 but it was mightily close with Lee Johnston getting to within 0.005s of the EHA Racing rider’s time.

Seeley lapped two seconds slower in Thursday afternoon’s session but Johnston was the man on the move and although he remained in second overall, his time of 4m37.078s on the Ashcourt Racing Yamaha put him quickest in the session and should mean a battle royale between the duo in the two races.

Fifth quickest on Tuesday, Dean Harrison improved his time by almost two seconds on the Silicone Engineering Kawasaki to jump up into third overall and onto the front row and that pushed fellow Kawasaki rider James Hillier back to the head of row two. He was third quickest again today thus continuing his fine form on the Quattro Plant Wicked Coatings machines but fourth overall on the times saw him drop back a row.

Joining him on the second row will be Peter Hickman and Michael Dunlop, the former making a few clutch adjustments mid-session to go some 2.8s quicker than what he did in the opening session on the Trooper Beer by Smiths Racing Triumph. Dunlop, meanwhile, failed to go quicker today with his time from Tuesday good enough for a second row start.

Heading the third row will be Derek McGee with the B&W/Diamond Edge Cutting Kawasaki moving from 12th on the leaderboard to a strong seventh and alongside him will be young guns Paul Jordan and Davey Todd, the latter two places ahead of Milenco by Padgetts Motorcycles Honda team-mate Conor Cummins.

Ian Hutchinson slots in between those two with Jamie Coward taking 12th ahead of the two Johnsons, Gary and David as fine conditions continued to greet the competitors on the North Coast.