Alastair Seeley won the opening Supersport race on the Gear Link Kawasaki at the 2016 North West 200 to chalk up his 16th victory at the Northern Ireland event.

That means that he has become the most successful rider of all-time beating the late Robert Dunlop’s tally of 15 wins.

In a week of glorious sunshine, the British Superbike series star went on to add a second Supersport victory and a new 600cc lap record to his NW200 CV on Saturday’s main race day.

“I didn’t arrive here thinking I had it in the bag so I’ve studied and watched other riders and even in the races I was still analysing and studying positions on track and people’s machinery. It takes a lot to actually win round here but you also need a lot of luck and I think I’ve had my fair share,” said Seeley afterwards.

Michael Dunlop was the winner of the only Superbike race to be run at the event on his Hawk Racing BMW. The 11 times TT winner broke the outright lap record set by Josh Brookes in 2014 during his NW200 debut year. Dunlop also finished fifth on his MD Racing BMW in the Superstock race.
“It was good to go out on the superbike and prove that we can still win races.” a delighted Dunlop said.

“It was tight but I did a lap record on my own, no towing, no slip streaming, no nothing.”

Dunlop’s arch TT rival, Ian Hutchinson, was runner up in the superbike event but the Yorkshireman had his revenge in the Superstock race when he took victory after Alastair Seeley ran wide on his Briggs BMW at Metropole on the final lap.

Hutchy was the victor in the best race of the day with seven riders battling for the lead at one stage during the stock event. It all came down to a last lap braking battle between the Bingley man and North West specialist,

Ivan Lintin was the winner of both Supertwins races on the Devitt’s RC Express Kawasaki.

Racing was abandoned before the feature Superbike and second Superstock races were run following a fatal accident involving 20 year old Malachi Mitchell-Thomas in Saturday’s Supertwins race. The English rider succumbed to his injuries after sliding off his Burrows Engineering Kawasaki in Portrush.