Pata Honda’s Leon Haslam came away from the World Superbike races at Imola with two top ten finishes today. It was a positive step forward for the injured rider after completing his first race since breaking his leg badly at Assen in April. The 30-year-old was tenth in race one and followed it up with ninth place in the second outing, and the rider is pleased with his progress.

It was a tough final race for the Smalley native, after he was involved in a battle for ninth with Fixi Crescent Suzuki’s Jules Cluzel and Ducati Alstare’s Ayrton Badovini, and Haslam was able to out pace all of them to clinch ninth overall, bettering his previous result earlier in the day. But the rider is still struggling with the pegs on his bike.

“You know, if I’d sat it out since my injury and got two top ten results like that on my first race back, I’d be pretty happy, so I’m feeling OK. I know where I’m struggling, I still can’t weight the pegs like I want, but I managed to pass a few people in the second race like Badovini and Cluzel and Checa,” said Haslam.

“So I’ll take that as my start point. I’ve got some testing to do for the 8-hour, a few more weeks of training, then Moscow and we’re still really only halfway through the season. Step by step we’re getting back to where we should be, so I’ll take those two top tens as a big positive for the weeks ahead.”