Pata Honda rider Leon Haslam came away from today’s World Superbike races in Turkey with a ninth and eighth place finishes. The Brit felt he could have performed better, particularly in race one when a bad tyre hampered his chances of a podium.
After a positive warm-up this morning, Haslam was surprised to find little grip from the rear of his CBR machine from the very first lap of race one and struggled to get within two seconds of his warm-up times.
Attention was focused on his rear tyre in the post-race analysis and the 30-year-old was certainly able to improve his lap times in race two as he battled for eighth place at the flag. But overall the Honda lad is happy with his consistency, and his pace at the end of the final race at the Istanbul Park circuit.
“I just got a bad tyre in race one, simple as that, and there was nothing I could do. The boys tried to get me to box for a few laps and, with hindsight, I should probably have come in and changed the tyre to go and do some faster lap times. But the racer’s instinct kept me out and I got a ninth out of it, just beating Michel Fabrizio,” said Haslam.
“I’m happy with my lap times in race two, even though I had a little less grip than we expected. That was down to some chassis changes that didn’t really work because we didn’t get the data from race one. My consistency was good though and my pace at the end was matching the top five, we just lacked a little bit of pace at the beginning.”