Stiggy Honda's Leon Haslam reckons that had Jonathan Rea not put him on to the grass four times during the second World Superbike race at Imola yesterday, the pair could have challenged for podiums.

Despite making a bad tyre choice in the second leg, and spending a lot of time off track, Haslam crossed the line in eighth to complement his sixth in race one.

"Yes, it was hard work out there today. The set-up was better in race two but we went with the wrong tyre for the second race, my decision because the temperature had gone up," said Haslam.

"Johnny (Rea) put me across the grass about four times, and that cost us a lot of time. If we had worked together we could have got up to the back of the group that actually got to the podium. Eighth in race two was not the best of results, but sixth on race one was better.

"We have had a few issues this weekend, but we have overcome them and we were running as fast as the leaders in the mid-part of one race. All-in-all, we improved over the weekend."