Dunlop completes four-timer at Cookstown 100
Michael Dunlop was a comprehensive winner of the Moto3 race on Saturday
- Published
Michael Dunlop won the feature race, Open race and Moto3 event at the Cookstown 100 road race on Saturday to make it a four-timer at the Irish national road race meeting.
Dunlop took an emphatic victory in the Open A Invitation Race on Friday and his subsequent trio of triumphs made it a hugely successful weekend as he continues his build-up to the North West 200 and Isle of Man TT events in the forthcoming weeks.
The 37-year-old produced a commanding display to take a start-to-finish success in the nine-lap Moto3 event over the 2.1-mile Orritor circuit.
Riding a Burrows Engineering/RK Racing Honda, Dunlop had 9.8 seconds to spare over runner-up Dan Sayle at the chequered flag, with Chris Meyer in third making up the podium positions.
The Open A race was red-flagged because of an incident two thirds of the way through the event, with Dunlop declared the winner after a thrilling battle at the front with Michael Sweeney.
The Republic of Ireland rider was right on the wheeltracks of his MD Racing Superstock BMW-mounted rival throughout and came in just 0.87 seconds adrift of the Ballymoney rider, who narrowly missed improving his own circuit lap record from 2025 by one tenth of a second.
Darryl Tweed was third, followed by Kevin Keyes, James Chawke and Sean Brolly.
Dunlop again saw off a strong challenge from MJR BMW competitor Sweeney in the closing feature Cookstown 100 race, pulling away in the latter stages to win by 8.65 seconds with the help of a new course record of 92.142mph, one minute 22.047 seconds his fastest circuit.
Marcus Simpson made up the rostrum places, followed by Tweed, Kyes and Chawke.
Michael Dunlop leads Michael Sweeney at Cookstown
Jordan and Sweeney take wins
Meanwhile Paul Jordan romped to victory in the Supersport race on his Jackson Racing V2 Ducati, having previously set the fastest speed in qualifying.
The Magherafelt rider dominated throughout, constantly extending his advantage over nearest challenger Tweed, who had a deficit of 10.5 seconds to Jordan by the end of the race.
Sweeney was third, a further 6.5 seconds back on Tweed, with Keyes, Simpson and Brolly rounding out the top six leaderboard.
Jordan, making a first appearance at the meeting since 2022, repeatedly broke the class lap record as he constantly upped the pace at the front and ended up with a new benchmark of 90.078mph, becoming the first rider to reach the 90mph milestone in the Supersport category.
His lap speed was one minute 23.927 seconds.
Sweeney came out on top in the Supertwins race, the Skerries rider finishing 1.5 seconds ahead of Tweed, with Chawke third.
Race results
Open A Invitation race result (Friday night) - 1 Michael Dunlop; 2 Michael Sweeney; 3 Marcus Simpson; 4 Darryl Tweed; 5 Paul Jordan; 6 Neil Kernohan
Supersport result - 1 Paul Jordan; 2 Darryl Tweed; 3 Michael Sweeney; 4 Kevin Keyes; 5 Marcus Simpson; 6 Sean Brolly
Moto3 result - 1 Michael Dunlop; 2 Dan Sayle; 3 Chris Meyer
Supertwins result - 1 Michael Sweeney; 2 Darryl Tweed; 3 James Chawke
Open A race result - 1 Michael Dunlop; 2 Michael Sweeney; 3 Darryl Tweed; 4 Marcus Simpson; 5 Kevin Keyes; 6 James Chawke
Cookstown 100 feature race - 1 Michael Dunlop; 2 Michael Sweeney; 3 Marcus Sim[son; 4 Darryl Tweed; 5 Kevin Keyes; 6 James Chawke
