Pata Honda’s Leon Haslam spent the first day of World Superbike free practice at Phillip Island evaluating new electronics software and dealing with a dragging front brake but still managed to stay within half a second of quickest man Alex Lowes.

The gritty veteran ended the two sessions with a 1’31.533 even though he was slowed by the braking problem and says he didn’t get to try the new soft-option Pirelli tyres, something he plans to remedy tomorrow.

“We’re not a million miles away, in spite of the fact that we actually had a few problems. The front brake was dragging quite badly in a straight line, which obviously affected top speed, but also in the corners. We also had slightly different software for the engine-braking so had to use the whole session getting it back to where we were in the test; and we’re still not quite there,” said Haslam.

“I didn’t use the soft today and felt pretty good on the harder tyre from the test. I think we could have gone a lot quicker but just ran out of time. Tomorrow, we need to do some work on the race tyres. There are three possible options, including two softer ones, so we’ll have to see how they perform.”