Pata Honda’s Leon Haslam is feeling ‘frustrated’ after he narrowly missed out on his first World Superbike podium of the year at a wet Portimao this afternoon.
The rider ended up finishing race two in fifth – equalling his best result of the year so far, but the Smalley rider wanted a rostrum finish. In race one he was on course for a possible top five finish – but was involved in a incident with Ducati’s Chaz Davies which saw both riders fall off their bikes.
Haslam was able to remount to cross the finishing line in 11th – but the result in race two has left him feeling disappointed. He was in third on the penultimate lap, but was soon overtaken by Davies and Voltcom Suzuki’s Alex Lowes.
“It's been a frustrating weekend because we've made some progress but we were able to translate that into results today. I had a problem on the qualifying tyre in Superpole and that left me in ninth place on the grid which wasn't ideal,” said Haslam.
“I was going OK in race one but Chaz [Davies] cut back across the line after he ran wide in turn five and that was the race done really. In the wet, I felt I could challenge for a podium in the middle part of the race but it didn't work out that way and I think that fifth was not a good reward for the effort we've put in here.”
