JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s Leon Haslam will line up in second place on the starting grid and will have a clear track in front of him for the opening MCE British Superbike race at the Dutch circuit of Assen.
His 1’54.109 lap means that he is sandwiched between pole-sitter, McAMS Yamaha’s James Ellison and Tyco BMW’s Christian Iddon on the front row for the first of two races on Sunday. Haslam felt more confident in the second qualifying session and then decided to make some more improvements to the bike ahead of Q3.
But those changes did not pay off and his team went in the wrong direction with the ZX-10RR and even though Haslam had a few ‘moments’ on track in the rain he still put down a lap time that was good enough for row one.
For the former World Superbike star the ‘biggest bonus’ is that he will start race one on the front row, and he also has an advantage over his fellow showdown riders, who didn’t make it onto the first three rows.
“It was quite dodgy out there and I saw a lot of people crashing and going down. In Q2 I had a good feeling and rhythm with the bike and we did a time that was quite a bit quicker than the rest,” said Haslam at the track.
“I felt we could have improved the bike so made some big changes to Q3 and we went out with five minutes to go and we basically went the wrong way and I had so many moments but still managed to do a good lap time and learnt a lot of information if it is raining tomorrow.
“The biggest bonus is that we are on the front row and the main tittle threats are not on the first three rows. Overall it has been a really positive day and feeling good for tomorrow and content with our strategy for tomorrow.”
