Lee Johnston is due to formally announce a return to racing this year, eight months on from the crash at the North West 200 that left him fighting for his life in intensive care.

Johnston spent four days in a coma and sustained a broken femur, shoulder and ribs, as well as a collapsed lung after coming down heavily during a qualifying practice session for the NW200 Supersport race on 11 May 2023.

Necessitating an arduous recovery process and rehabilitation, Johnston was forced to sit out the remainder of the racing season, raising concerns the extended period out of action might deter him from mounting a comeback in 2024.

However, Johnston has since confirmed - via a video posted to his active YouTube ‘vlog’ account - that plans are underway for 2024, with a ‘big announcement’ being teased on his social media accounts more recently.

Regardless, Johnston says his plans include getting back to the North West 200 - which begins on 8 May 2024 - before heading on to the Isle of Man for the 2024 TT.

A return to the British Supersport Championship is also in the works, Johnston looking to pick up where he left off having been at the head of the BritishSSP standings at the time of his NW200 smash.

“The plan for next year is pretty much the plan for 2023 was, before I had a lie down at the North West 200,” he said towards the end of last year. 

“I think people were too polite to ring and ask me whether I was quitting, or going again. So this is me finally coming out with the news that the intention is to go and do the job properly. We are going to try and spend a bit of time in Spain during the winter becauseI’ve missed out on so much riding, for bike fitness and getting my strength back.

“Unbeknown to quite a lot of people, we have sold the Supersport bikes, all the R6s are gone. We are still in talks with manufacturers over what to do next. 

“We want to go back and do well in the British Supersport Championship, then the North West 200 and the Isle of Man TT, we’ll have all the bikes for those, so we’ll be back to running the Aprilia (SuperTwins) and the Honda Fireblade in Superbike and Superstock, then we’ll be in 600 too.”

The news will come as a relief to Johnston’s supporters, many of whom have followed the 34-year old’s lengthy recovery process through a regular stream of video updates.

Indeed, Johnston has earned widespread praise among the racing community for using the platform to speak openly about the effect of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the weeks after his accident and the impact it had on his mental health, revealing: 

“Within two days of waking up in the hospital I knew something wasn’t right,” he said speaking in July 2023. “I kept saying that someone else had gone to sleep in the hospital and this person woke up, which sounds crazy, but that is what it felt like in my head…”