Pata Honda’s Leon Haslam did not have the best of finishes to his World Superbike season in Qatar. He failed to make it into the top five in both races, and blames ‘bad luck’ as the cause for some of his issues.

The Smalley rider is leaving the Pata Honda team for pastures new next year, but he struggled with front end grip in race one, and at the flag ended the race in eleventh.

In race two he had a good start from sixth place on the grid, but the 31-year-old was forced off the track at the first corner by Kawasaki’s Loris Baz and had to recover from last position. But Haslam finished seventh in the overall championship standings.

“At the start of race two, Baz was going to wipe about five riders out and he came right across me. I had to lift up because he was going to hit me and we both went off the track. Coming through from last place to tenth wasn’t the best way to finish the season but we certainly made some good changes to the bike from race one to race two,” said Haslam.

“We should probably have opted for the softer tyre like everyone else and I ended up in a bit of a lonely race in tenth for the last few laps. But it was fun coming through the field in the first part of the race and we secured seventh in the championship which was the main thing. The results have been a little disappointing but I think we’ve all worked really well this weekend and just had a bit of bad luck.”