Britain’s Leon Haslam rounded off his return to the World Superbike Championship in Qatar with a fifth-place finish on the Pedercini Kawasaki after a difficult start to the weekend.

Haslam missed most of free practice one with engine and electronics problems and began Sunday’s second race on the third motor for the weekend but a brace of good starts saw him able to battle for a top-five slot.

“Obviously I had a tough start after missing the first practice and getting used to the bike. We’ve had our fair share of problems this weekend but to finish on a high with a fifth is pretty good,” said Haslam.

“We made some really good starts and we were up to third at one point so over the moon really we couldn’t ask for anymore, big thanks to my sponsors and Pedercini for giving me the opportunity to come out and have some fun with the guys.”

Haslam was able to slot into a podium space at the re-start but just didn’t have the race pace to stay with Chaz Davies and the works Kawasakis.

“To be honest with you my early laps were quite good. I went from 16th to fifth in the first part and then obviously went from eighth to third after the restart, so I knew that in the early laps I could make the difference but from that point we were struggling to run the same pace of Jonny and Chaz and Tom. But we did what we did and I was pretty happy with the end result.”