2022 NW200: Irwin makes it six consecutive Superbike wins

Glenn Irwin took his sixth consecutive Superbike race win at the North West 200 on Saturday afternoon with the Honda Racing rider bagging a comfortable victory over Richard Cooper (Hawk Racing Suzuki) and Josh Brookes (MCE Ducati).

However, it was a rather depleted field that took to the line after Dunlop Tyres discovered a fault in a batch of their Superbike-spec slick tyres. On the grounds of safety, that meant several of the fancied riders withdrew from the race including Peter Hickman, Michael Dunlop, Davey Todd, Conor Cummins, Dean Harrison, Lee Johnston, Sam West and Brian McCormack. That was of little concern to the rest of the field though and Irwin led Cooper, Ian Hutchinson (Milwaukee BMW) and Brookes around York Corner. The latter moved up to third at University after Hutchinson went straight on and at the end of the lap the running order was Irwin, Cooper, Brookes, John McGuinness (Honda Racing), James Hillier (RICH Energy OMG Racing Yamaha) and Michael Rutter (Bathams Racing BMW). Irwin led Cooper by a second with Brookes two seconds further back and the leading trio were already more than seven seconds clear of fourth placed McGuinness. Hillier, meanwhile, was hit with a 10s penalty for overshooting the Juniper Chicane whilst Hutchinson crossed the line in eighth. Irwin’s lead stayed at one second on lap two with Brookes dropping further back in third and although Hillier crossed the line in fourth, the penalty meant he was down in seventh on corrected time behind McGuinness, Rutter and Hutchinson. The withdrawal of all the Dunlop runners meant only 22 runners started and as the laps were ticked off, it became a strung out affair but Irwin continued to press on and a third lap of 124.456mph enabled him to