Pata Honda’s Leon Haslam suffered from grip problems during both World Superbike races at Laguna Seca, and after a promising Superpole session came away without a podium finish.

At the start of the first race Haslam did have the pace to stay fifth in the field, but was soon out-paced by his team-mate Jonathan Rea and ended the opening race three seconds behind his colleague. In race two the grip problems moved from the front to the rear of the bike and the Brit came away with two top seven finishes.

“In race one I felt pretty good – I got a good start but really struggled with front grip from lap one. I was hanging in there for a top five finish but in the last six or seven laps my pace dropped off quite a lot as I was really struggling with the front grip,” said Haslam.

“In race two we didn’t change anything but the front grip came back and it was really good, but we struggled more with rear grip. On the three starts in race two the grip got worse and worse and I was over a second slower than I had been on a 20-lap tyre.

“We need to analyse why because the bike was the same and the boys have worked really well this weekend and we’ve been making good progress, especially on old tyres. To be that slow on new tyres in those re-starts was not what we wanted.”