North West 200: Richard Cooper loses Supertwin double win after retrospective disqualification
- Published
Richard Cooper finished first in both of Saturday's Supertwin races
Richard Cooper has lost his two Supertwin victories at the North West 200 after being excluded retrospectively for a technical infringement.
Cooper won both Supertwin races on Saturday to claim what would have been his first two victories at the international event.
However, a protest was lodged against a bracket on his Kawasaki bike before the second race, though he was eventually allowed to take part with the protest to be fully reviewed after the race.
Hours after racing had finished for the day, it was announced that he had been disqualified and stripped of his two race victories.
BBC Sport understands an appeal has been made against Cooper's disqualification.
The Supertwin races were awarded to Pierre Yves Bian and Joe Loughlin, which meant a maiden international road race success for each rider.
Speaking soon after the protest had been lodged, Ryan Farquhar, owner of Cooper's KMR Kawasaki, strongly criticised the move.
"There's been a protest on a technicality over a bracket," he said.
"They told us we were disqualified but I fought my corner because you're allowed to change tour brackets. We put an appeal in so that's where we're at, at the minute.
"If it was that big an issue there was no way Richard should have been out there, the bike has gone through scrutiny all week. There's no performance gain with it whatsoever so I think if they do disqualify us through that it'll just be sour grapes."