“Safety is paramount”: Why North West 200 Superbike Race 2 wasn’t restarted

The 2026 North West 200 was brought to an early end this evening when a red flag brought an end to the final Superbike race.

Superbike Race 2 had started lap four when the red flag was thrown for an oil spill on the exit of Juniper Chicane.

There were initially hopes to restart the race, the final race of this year's edition of the Northern Irish road racing event, with a three-lap race originally planned after the red flag.

However, the clean up of the oil took too long in order to be able to complete the race before the roads were required to open, and so it was decided that the race would not be restarted.

“Very much so,” said Whyte when asked by BBC Sport NI about having initially had hopes to restart the final race of the day.

“Our plan was to have a restart when we were sort of going around to the scene itself. 

“When we looked at it, there’s an oil spill for probably 40 or 50 metres, which is fairly severe, and it’s on the right-hand side as you exit Juniper Chicane. 

“Safety is paramount, at the end of the day – we worked to clean it and it’s taken a lot of time to do that. 

“Unfortunately, we just ran out of time. The road closing order requires the roads to be open at 18:45 and it’d futile running two three further [laps].”

The declared result had Storm Stacey leading at the end of lap three and the newcomer therefore took his second win of the day. Dean Harrison was classified second and Glenn Irwin took third.

Stacey ended Sunday as this year’s only two-time winner at the North West 200. The Supertwin wins were split between Peter Hickman and Jeremy McWilliams, Michael Dunlop won the only Supersport race, and Glenn Irwin won Superbike Race 1.