Michael Dunlop will line up in pole position for the two North West 200 Superstock races with a late charge seeing him jump up the leaderboard. Riding his own MD Racing BMW, Dunlop put in a lap of 120.098mph to steal the top spot from Alastair Seeley.
Seeley, on the Mar-Train Kawasaki, had gone to the top of the pile immediately and although he was briefly pushed back to third by Michael Rutter and Martin Jessopp, he retaliated with a lap of 120.032mph to take second and the middle of the front row.
The BMW pairing of Rutter and Jessopp held on for third and fourth with Simon Andrews posting almost the final lap of the session, 118.892, to move from ninth to fifth. Tuesday’s pace setter Horst Saiger lapped quicker than his previous best but slipped back to sixth on the combined times.
Bruce Anstey, who found himself at the bottom of the top twenty for much of the session, put in a late lap of 118.259mph to leap up to seventh with Conor Cummins, a faller on Tuesday evening, Gary Johnson and Stephen Thompson rounding out the top ten.
John McGuinness will start from 12th after stopping his session early due to his injured wrist, with William Dunlop, Dean Harrison, Guy Martin and James Hillier four more big names outside the top ten.
Top ten lap speeds
1 Michael Dunlop 120.098mph
2 Alastair Seeley 120.032
3 Michael Rutter 119.788
4 Martin Jessopp 119.451
5 Simon Andrews 118.892
6 Horst Saiger 118.787
7 Bruce Anstey 118.529
8 Conor Cummins 118.420
9 Stephen Thompson 118.414
10 Gary Johnson 118.400
