This weekend anyone watching the North West 200 would have seen Alastair Seeley add to his record breaking tally of wins at the famous pre-TT road race event, as his tyre sponsor Metzeler dominated proceedings in Northern Ireland.
With four wins in a week, the Carrickfergus based rider has now visited the top step of the podium 21 times, and early on he took pole in both the Supersport and Superstock classes.
The first night of racing saw Martin Jessop take his first international road racing win as he came out victorious in the Supersport contest, following that up later the same evening with a win in the Supertwins ahead of fellow Metzeler rider Michael Rutter. Seeley went on to take his opening win of the week in the Superstocks, winning by over 12 seconds and setting a new lap record in the process.
Saturday’s racing was delayed by early morning rain, but when action resumed Seeley carried on where he left off to take the second Supersport victory. Rain also delayed the start of the first Superbike race, which eventually took place on a wet track after being reduced to just four laps. Once again Seeley dominated, beating Rutter by 21 seconds, although Michael would go on to win the Supertwin race later that day to become the 3rd most successful rider in the event’s history to date.
The second Superstock race was cut short by further rain as the red flags came out around the midway point, with Seeley awarded his fourth win of the week ahead of the weekend’s final contest.
The circuit dried out before the final epic Superbike race began, Seeley trading blows with Glenn Irwin and Ian Hutchinson through a series of audacious overtakes. However it would be Ducati’s young British Superbike star who made the decisive move in the final stages to take his maiden victory at the event in front of his home crowd.
Irwin’s victory wrapped up a fantastic weekend for Metzeler, whose riders took wins in every single race, with 15 podiums in total achieved on Racetec tyres.
METZELER UK Racing Manager Jason Griffiths commented:
”Eight from eight tells the story of the 2017 North West 200 for Metzeler! We used the full spectrum of the Metzeler racing range to win across all the classes in a variety of conditions.
A sincere thanks to all of our riders. Congratulations to Martin Jessopp for his first win which he then doubled up on shortly afterwards on Thursday evening. Metzeler’s Mr. NW200 Alastair Seeley logged up another impressive four wins. And then to top off a perfect week, Glenn Irwin took his first win in the feature North West 200 Superbike race in some style on his PBM Ducati machine.”
You can view Metzeler’s Racetec RR range here.
