Haslam: everything that could go wrong did

Leon Haslam is looking ahead to the next World Superbike Championship round at Misano after a frustrating weekend at Miller Motorsports Park culminated with anonymous runs to tenth and eighth. Determined to bounce back from the controversial clash that prevented him from winning at Donington Park, Haslam instead found himself mired with technical issues for much of the weekend, while a puncture in qualifying contributed to his lowly 13th place grid position. Having lost a significant amount of track time, Haslam's progress in both races was nothing more than steady as he battled away in the mid-pack, the BMW rider eventually picking up 14 points for tenth and eighth place finishes. With team-mate Marco Melandri claiming victory on the sister S1000RR, Haslam says he will now turn his attentions to Misano, where he will attempt to make up lost ground to the title contenders. “It was a tough weekend. Everything that could have gone wrong did this weekend. Due to electrical issues and other things we missed a lot of track time. In race one we were struggling with the engine brake. For race two we made good steps, the boys had worked very well, but we need to do more. Our lap time was not too bad in race two, but it is not where we should be. The main thing we need to work on is the engine braking. The long break between the red flag and the restart was a positive thing for me because we could reassess the bike and make some more changes after we lost a lot of time over the weekend. I got a good feeling over the first three laps and we made some more changes for the second part which brought another small improvement. “Marco rode well over the whole weekend and now I look forward to Misano where I know we can challenge for the wins again.” Haslam has now dropped 57.5 points adrift of Max Biaggi in the overall standings.