After an up and down start to his 2024 British Superbike Championship season, Leon Haslam sparked life into his campaign at the weekend with two podiums at Donington Park.
The 2018 champion has been affected by several technical issues on his ROKiT Haslam Racing BMW but whilst it wasn’t all plain sailing at his local track, third in Saturday’s race and then a close second in Sunday’s Sprint race – when it looked at one stage that he’d overhaul long time race leader Glenn Irwin – was a little bit more like it.
“We had a bit of a braking issue on Saturday, but the team made some positive changes to the bike for Sunday and for 75% of the lap, the bike felt really strong,” he said. “I was losing a bit of time in the last sector and especially out of the last two corners where the Ducati was punching out the corners better than the BMW. But the tyre felt good and the bike stable and consistent.”
After those two podiums, Haslam would have been hoping for more of the same, at least, in the final race but he didn’t have the pace to go with the leading pack in the second half of the race and sixth was the best he could manage. Nevertheless, the weekend haul of 40 points moved him up to sixth in the championship standings.
“Sixth in the final race was the best we could do in that one, but at the end of the day we are coming away from here with two podiums and that’s great. Not only is it two podiums, but we were battling for the win in those races so that’s a real positive coming out of this round.”
“There’s still a few little issues we need to work around but all in all it’s been a good weekend and I can’t thank the ROKiT Haslam Racing boys enough. We’ve had some great results, we’re back on the podium and are going home with some good points.”
