The opening day of qualifying for the 2025 North West 200 was cut to just two sessions due to an incident on-track that required air ambulan🦩ce attendance.

☂This year’s North West 200 got underway under glorious conditions on Northern Ireland’s North Coast, with four timed sessions originally scheduled.

The day began with the newcomers session, where debutants to the event ran s▨peed c꧒ontrolled untimed laps to get a feel for the course.

The first timed session of the day was for the Superbikes, though this was twice red-✅flagged due to two oil spills.

The session was eventually completed, with Peter Hickman leading the w🦋ay for 8TEN Racing on a BMW with a 4m35.271s.

Honda's Dean Harrison was clocked at 209.1mph through the speedtraps on his Superbi🍌ke, while he also topped the Sup💯ersport speeds at 185mph.

2025 North West 200 - Wednesday Superbike qualifying times

The two red flags led to a lengthy🎉 delay to the overall schedule, with the Supersport class following before that session was quickly halted.

Organisers co🃏nfirmed during the stoppage that it was due to an incident on course.

BBC Sport later revꦆeaꦯled that two riders were involved, with one taken to a local hospital by road while a second needed to be airlifted from the course.

No further details have been given by the organiser𝕴s, though they released this statement: 

"Two riders were involved in an incident at Mill Road roundabout on the NW200 course six minut𝓀es into the Supersport qualifying session at today's Briggs Equipment North West 200.

"Both riders were injured in the incident and the on course medi𓄧cal team attended the scene.

"The riders were subsequently transferred to hospit✃al, one by road ambulance and the other by air ambulance."

Due to the🥀 road🐬 closing order in place, roads had to re-open at 3pm.

This meant 🃏that, when the Supersport session got back underway at around 2:45pm local time, there was time enough for just a few laps.

Richard Cooper was fastest in Supersport with a 4m36.484s ahead of Dean Harrison and Michael Dunℱlop on his new V2 Panigale Ducati.

2025 North West 200 - Wednesday Supersport qualifying times