Leon Haslam’s Pata Honda team found something to improve the setup of his Fireblade at Many-Cours but exactly what it is seems to be shrouded in secrecy with neither rider nor crew allowed to spill what has changed.

The problem, which is believed to be mechanical and connected to the electronics, should have been picked up on some time ago according to Haslam.

That aside, Haslam had a mixed weekend with a crash in qualifying but he axed his way through to eighth in race one despite the change to the mystery part messing with his setup before a technical problem put him out of the second encounter.

“Yes, we had a technical problem in race two but I’m actually really, really happy that we’ve found an important aspect of the bike that has been wrong for many races. We changed that part for race two and it transformed the bike,” said Haslam.

“It turned properly and did everything that it should have been doing for the last few rounds. It took a lot of inconsistency out of the bike as well. Starting from 15th wasn’t ideal but, even though our setting didn’t suit the big change we made, I was quickly able to get up to seventh and was catching the guys in front.”