BMW's Leon Haslam was prevented from changing his front intermediate tyre for a full slick before the start of World Superbike race two at Assen today as officials deemed his crew to have run out of time and he was forced to run with a the compromised setup.

The Derbyshire man still managed to bag a fifth place and says he is happy despite the disappoinment of race one when he crashed out of a nine-second lead. Haslam said he felt he wasn't pushing hard and wasn't aware of the gap to second when the rear of his S1000RR came round on him when the throttle was shut.

“Race one was dry at the start. I made a small mistake when I was battling with Carlos Checa mid-race and dropped back to sixth, but I came back in the lead. I had a bit of a tyre issue in that race but it was red flagged anyway due to the rain so for me the red flag was not a bad thing, even though my pace was good enough to get to regain the lead from the back," said Haslam.

"At the re-start it was raining. I passed Johnny Rea quite easily. It was feeling pretty smooth and easy – and then I had a big crash. I did not realize that I was pushing so much. In hindsight I could have maybe slowed off, but even so I did not feel that I was pushing too hard. After race one I was very disappointed because I could have lost a second per lap and still won the race. The positive thing is that we feel pretty confident in the rain.

In race two, we opted for an intermediate front and a slick rear tyre. Three minutes before the start I knew that we needed a slick front, but they wouldn’t let us change the tyre because we were running out of time. After two or three laps, the front tyre was just pushing and bouncing and I didn’t have any corner speed. I was surprised that riders didn’t pass me sooner. Somehow I managed to hold Eugene and Marco’s pace, even with the intermediate tyre. I thought I got Marco over the line; it was really, really close. In hindsight I’m happy because we nearly got on the podium with an intermediate front tyre.”