Red Devils Aprilia’s Leon Haslam just missed a front-row start for tomorrow’s two World Superbike encounters at Portimao after an error on his qualifying tyre lap but is confident he has the pace to challenge on race tyres.

After a tough start to the weekend when his RSV4 had a crank position sensor issue, Haslam topped the final free practice session today and then set a 1’42.217s lap on a race tyre to bag fifth place.

“Unfortunately I made a mistake in the first sector with the qualifying tyre. I was slower than when I had the race tyre on and that compromised my flying lap even though my pace was good in the other sectors,” said Haslam.

“I'm disappointed but at the same time I'm confident since I had the fastest time with a race tyre both in Superpole and in the last practice session. We still need to work on a few details of the setup to improve over race distance, but our pace is good in any case. I didn't use the pain killers much today and my physical condition shouldn't be a problem for the races tomorrow.”