Oulton BSB: ‘I made the right choice with slick tyres’ - Haslam

JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s Leon Haslam had a one hundred percent podium success record at the MCE British Superbike round at Oulton Park, after clinching his first win of the season, and coming across the finishing line in third in the final race this afternoon.

It was quite a dramatic start to the second race as it was looking like a dry race, but moments before there was a short but heavy rain shower that descended on to the Cheshire track. Then the rain stopped and many riders decided to change their bikes from a wet to dry setup’s.

Haslam and his team-mate James Ellison opted for a fully dry set up with slick tyres. The Smalley rider’s team were literally in a race against time to get his ZX-10R changed, but even though they did as much as he could possibly do, Haslam felt they could have done with at least an extra minute to get the bike completely how they wanted it.

But Haslam sticks by his decision to go for a dry set-up and slicks and just wished for a little bit more time to get his bike changed. The eventual race-one winner, Richard Cooper went for intermediate front’s and slick rear tyres, but Haslam is happy with tyre decision and with his first win of the season.

“Not quite the double win, but I felt with the changes that we made for race two it is the best we could have done. We came away with six podium credits so we know it’s good. I felt that we made some good steps with understating what the bike needs, but we ran out of time in race two to get the bike to the set up that we wanted in the dry,” said Haslam, speaking to Bikesportnews.com.

“I don’t know if slicks were the right choice, looking at the guys winning on inter fronts and inter fronts and rears, but I do feel I made the right choice with the slicks, but we did not get the front end how I wanted with the wet to full dry [tyre.]

[Having to change tyres on the grid] “A small change like that it can determine my result and issues and if we could of had a minute longer we could have been nearly over a second a lap faster, and that is the difference from finishing outside the top five or even winning.

“The set up is quite crucial and our wet to dry set up was quite big and when we made the choice to go slicks and go to a dry set up it was a big job for the guys, and they got anything they could have done in the time that they had.

“The win was a weight off the shoulders, and it was a hard fought battle and feeling pretty good with how it went. I felt I could have pushed even harder at some points but the risk factor was high, so I was pretty happy it turned out the way it did.”