Alastair Seeley announces details of North West 200 return

Alastair Seeley, the record holder for wins at the North West 200, will return to famous Triangle Circuit in 2025 with BMW machinery.

29-time winner Seeley missed last year’s edition of the event, but announced his plans for 2025 with the SMS/Nicholl Oils team during the event launch for this year’s North West 200 on 25 February

“I'm really excited and happy to be back on the north coast in May,” Seeley told BBC Sport NI.

“It's all down to the team. SMS/Nicholl Oils have given me the chance on my old BMW so let's see if we can hit the ground running and start where we left off.”

Seeley added: “I said I would only come back if I had competitive bikes and the guys have given me basically my old bike.”

“Looking back over times and lap times, they haven't moved on very much so I feel like we'll still be competitive.”

Seeley also indicated that he will contest an additional class, by saying “I've got seven bites of the cherry to have a go at it and hopefully we can get one of them at least.”

Seeley will race five times on the BMW M1000 RR at this year’s North West 200, with three Superbike races and two Superstock races. That leaves two “bites of the cherry” from the seven he mentioned.

That implies that he will race either the Supertwin or Supersport class, each of which have two races on the schedule.

Having not raced the Supertwin class before, and being a 13-time winner in Supersport, the most likely scenario would appear to be a return to the Supersport class, also, for Seeley in 2025. However, at the time of writing, he has not announced any plans for the middleweight class at the 2025 North West 200.