Glenn Irwin has taken pole for Saturday’s Supertwins race at the Ulster Grand Prix with the Burrows Engineering runner edging out Ivan Lintin by just over half a second.
On the first flying lap, it was Irwin that was initially the quickest with a lap of 115.101mph but Lintin, circulating towards the back of the field, went three quarters of a second quicker at 115.466mph.
Soon after Dan Cooper pushed Irwin back another spot with a lap of 115.195mph as James Cowton and Russ Mountford slotted into fourth and fifth. Christian Elkin occupied sixth place but he crashed out, fortunately without injury, along the start and finish straight next time around after the bike locked up.
It brought out the red flag but after a short delay the session resumed and Lintin wasted no time, increasing his speed to 117.428mph. It initially sent him over three seconds clear of Cowton but Irwin, riding the injured Jamie Hamilton’s bike, lapped at 116.503 to close to within 1.8s.
Lintin went quicker again on his sixth lap at 117.653mph but so too did Irwin and his lap of 117.077mph saw the gap come down to 1.1s.Cowton remained in third with former 125cc British Championship race winner Paul Jordan moving up to fourth.
However, in the final seconds, Irwin lapped at 117.994mph to grab pole position with Lintin and Cowton joining him on the front row. Cooper’s final lap of 115.514mph allowed him to get the better of Jordan for fourth with Derek McGee moving up to sixth.
Mountford, Elkin, Alastair Kirk and Andy Lawson filled out the top ten.
