Silverstone BSB: Haslam not hindered by ‘mistakes’ on way to pole

JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s Leon Haslam has certainly made an impact on his return to the MCE British Superbike series, and stormed to pole position for the opening race of the championship at Silverstone, after a successful qualifying session.

But the rider believed that he did make a few ‘mistakes’ out on track, but even so this did not deter him from setting a lap time that was the fastest all weekend, and placed his ZX-10R firmly in the P1 position after making it all the way through to Q3.

The weather conditions were mixed today, and the session began slightly damp and cold, but got drier as the qualifying outings progressed, and the Smalley rider is confident that he has the pace to lap consistently in the mid 2’6’s or 2’7’s if conditions are the same tomorrow.

Haslam put down a 2’05.501 and shares the front row with Honda Racing’s Jason O’Halloran and Tyco BMW’s Christian Iddon, and he was only three tenths off lap record pace. But even if Haslam felt that his laps were far from perfect it is safe to say that he has definitely made an impact on the BSB grid.

“I was pushing hard and making a lot of mistakes. I pushed on - and on my first lap of the middle session I made a mistake and I set my 5’9 when the tyre was wrecked. I was sideways everywhere and I couldn’t believe how much quicker I went with it, but I managed to put a lap together with like no grip,” said Haslam, speaking to Bikesportnews.com from the track.

“My first lap was too hard and I made a mistake and I thought ‘calm down, get a lap in’ because I haven’t got time to go. I did a 5’5 and I thought I’d push a bit harder, I was up 0.4 and I ran wide into the last left hander and lost it so did another 5’5.

“Then the tyres started to drop again on lap four and five and I pushed on again and I was on to do another good lap and I made a mistake and I rode wide again. It could’ve been better but I hadn’t seen the board on any lap so I didn’t know where I was or what they were doing and as I rode off I thought the tyres gone now - I’m not going to beat it and I looked up and I was P1 and I was surprised.

“It’s the first time I’ve put a grippy tyre with our bike and it reacted quite differently. When I first hit the brakes it was quite aggressive so I cant snap the brakes quite as hard and also vice versa so you cant get on the throttle and turn it off the back end. You’ve got to use the grip so you’ve actually got to do more on entry with a grippy tyre and get the thing pointing out of the corner. [If conditions remain the same as today] anyone who wants to be on the podium will not be running the zero tyre, they’ll be running a one.

“I know I can do 6s I can definitely keep it in the bottom 7s even after race distance [in similar weather conditions to that in qualifying] so that’s my rhythm and I am hoping that my rhythm will be better for tomorrow now - I’d be happy doing mid 6s to low 7s. I think that’ll be good enough - but I might be wrong and have to be faster.”