Jamie Coward lived up to his billing as one of the potential stars of TT2023 with an personal best fourth place finish in Saturday’s Supersport TT, followed by a run to fifth in the Superbike TT.

Riding the KTS Racing powered by Stanley Stewart Racing Yamaha in the Supersport class, Coward, who placed seventh on the qualifying leaderboard, was in the mix straightaway and after slotting into sixth at Glen Helen on lap one, he overhauled both Davey Todd and James Hillier on the run to Ramsey to move into fourth.

From there, he never looked back and although Todd closed back in during the second half of the race, a new personal best 600cc lap of 127.651mph enabled Coward, the leading privateer at the last two TT’s, to see off his Honda rival by just under three seconds.

“I was aiming for a top six finish and if I achieved that I’d have been happy so I’m over the moon with fourth place especially as I haven’t had much time on the 600,” he said afterwards. “The weather’s been great but I’ve focused more on the 1000cc Honda as it’s our first time here with the bike and the big bikes always take that bit longer to get set up.”

“I felt comfortable on the little 600 though and had the podium in sight in the first half of the race. I lost a bit of time at the beginning of the third lap which allowed Peter (Hickman) to pull away and I was struggling for a bit of rear grip on the final lap.”

“I could see the gap to Davey was close though, so I really pushed on over the Mountain, where I felt strong, and set my best lap on a 600cc machine on the last lap.

Coward went on to notch up a second top five finish the following day with a competitive run to fifth place on the KTS Racing Honda CBR1000RR-R.

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