Pata Honda's Leon Haslam is grateful that the flowing nature of Assen's World Superbike track means there isn't the huge disadvantage of a long-straight for his ageing Fireblade.

The gritty Derbyshire man, and team-mate Jonathan Rea, suffered a series of woes last time out at Aragon, not least the relative lack of top-end compared to the Aprilia, Kawasaki and BMW, he hopes that all the other niggles that conspired against him in Spain have been squared up.

"I’m really looking forward to getting on the bike again at Assen as we know that it goes well there from Johnny’s results here. I like Assen, too, and finished twice on the podium the last time I was here on the Honda CBR," said Haslam.

"We made a lot of progress with the bike during our testing in Spain but it was unfortunate that we had some issues which affected our race weekend at Aragon. Assen has corner characteristics that suit our chassis and there’s no long straight, so we’re hoping for better results this time out."