JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s Leon Haslam was hoping to put down a couple of race runs, during the MCE British Superbike second free practice session at Brands Hatch, but issues with his ZX-10R meant that he was unable to put that plan in to action.
The Smalley rider is in contention for the title, but he was in and out of his garage today, with issues similar to what he had at Assen with his Kawasaki.
But his crew were able to get grid of any major gremlins before the end of the session and Haslam went out and did five consistent laps at the Kent track. His 1’25.729 placed him fifth on the timing-screens and two tenths off the best time set by rival, Be Wiser Ducati’s Shane Byrne.
“My plan was to do race runs but we had problems with the bike and there were a lot of in and out laps. We got the bike nearly like it should be for the last five or six laps and we put some times in there,” said Haslam, speaking to bikesportnews.com at the track.
“It was a bit of a tough day to be honest with you and I have not managed the runs that I wanted. The lap times I am pretty happy with, especially with the amount of track times and issues that we had. We have just been using the hard tyres and we have been concentrating on them because I believe with the cool temperature it is going to be that way.
“Shane and Peter have done long distance on the soft one and theirs look pretty good and it might be something I will look at tomorrow morning and might be an option for the race. Today I was meant to do a long run on the tyres but with the issues that we have we didn’t manage to do that.”
