Pata Honda Leon Haslam spent the first World Superbike qualifying session at Phillip Island lapping on the harder compound Pirelli slick and says his laptimes were 'easy and comfortable'.

The Derbyshire man finished the day in sixth place and only four-tenths off fastest man Michel Fabrizio, electing to ignore the soft tyre and work on a race distance strategy for Sunday's double-header.

"It felt really good today and we were just concentrating hard on our race set-up. We got a tyre that we did race distance on and the lap times were as good as anybody’s so I’m happy with that," said Haslam.

"A couple of tyres are definitely not the option – they’re just blistering and I think a couple of people are suffering with that. I think I was only one of a few riders that didn’t use the soft tyre this afternoon so I was quite happy with the lap time, which felt quite easy and comfortable, and I’m happy with the progression we’re making.

"We’ll spend tomorrow working on tyre life and fine-tuning the electronics, which seem to change day-by-day with the weather and the wind. It’s getting stronger each day so I hope it doesn’t change direction tomorrow – otherwise we’ll have to start all over again."