Leon Haslam finished in sixth and then 17th place in the two rain-hit races of round ten of the World Superbike Championship at Silverstone on Sunday.
Haslam qualified on the front row of the grid and led the opening 18-lap race for seven laps but the damp weather and cool conditions began to affect his rear tyre performance and the Derbyshire man could only battle to sixth, just 2.6s behind the race winner.
In the second race, eventually stopped after ten laps due to the heavy rain, Haslam was heading for a top ten finish before he crashed, remounted and was up to 12th.
But when race direction opted to take the final result from the end of lap eight with only half World Championship points awarded, Haslam was demoted to 17th place.
Haslam said: “Unfortunately it was another bad race day for me as circumstances again prevented my first victory for BMW. It wasn’t the fault of the team or the machine, I could have won race one.
“But I was just unlucky with the weather and the rear tyre. In race two I had a strange issue during the first half of the race, there was something odd with the centre of the tyre when it was damp as the more it rained the better the tyre became.
“I started to catch the guys again but then I crashed on some oil. I was able to get back into the race and moved up to 14th but then it was red flagged and the classification was based on the result after lap eight, so I was out of the points.
“It is really frustrating to end such a promising day in this fashion. They should have stopped the second race before they did as the conditions were really bad and once there is oil and water on the circuit it’s difficult to stay on the machine.”
Comments