Haslam battles in Turkey

Pata Honda rider Leon Haslam took two top ten finishes in today’s 11th-round World Superbike championship races at Istanbul Park in Turkey, where Irishman Eugene Laverty grabbed both race wins.

After a positive warm-up this morning, Halsam was surprised to find little grip from the rear of his CBR machine from the very first lap of race one and struggled to get within two seconds of his warm-up times. Attention was focused on his rear tyre in the post-race analysis and the 30-year-old was certainly able to improve his lap times in race two as he battled for eighth place at the flag.

Leon Haslam – 9th and 8th

I just got a bad tyre in race one – simple as that - and there was nothing I could do. The boys tried to get me to box for a few laps and, with hindsight, I should probably have come in and changed the tyre to go and do some faster lap times. But the racer’s instinct kept me out and I got a ninth out of it, just beating Michel [Fabrizio]. I’m happy with my lap times in race two, even though I had a little less grip than we expected. That was down to some chassis changes that didn’t really work because we didn’t get the data from race one. My consistency was good though and my pace at the end was matching the top five, we just lacked a little bit of pace at the beginning.

Pieter Breddels – technical co-ordinator

Leon had a bad rear tyre from the start of race one, without any grip or any chance for a result. There’s not much more to say about that. He lost a little bit too much time at the start of race two but, from the middle of the race, Leon was doing some decent lap times, which was promising. We also found out some more interesting things which we will take to the next race.