JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s Leon Haslam came away from the sixth round of the MCE British Superbike series in quite a positive frame of mind. He finished third in race one at Brands Hatch and was able to expand the tyre life with the softer rear Pirelli compound.

But there were still some issues for the Smalley rider as his team made some changes which did not work as well as expected and Haslam finished in fifth in race two and ended just ahead of team-mate Luke Mossey. His crew also tried some different chassis setups and Haslam was content with those changes, and especially with the SC0 tyre.

The World Superbike wild card rider kept his usual SC2 harder front tyre for both races, and then opted for the softer rear Pirelli tyres in the double header at the Kent GP circuit, which is a change from his usual SC1 rear tyres.

The ZX-10RR rider has had a busy few weeks. He has recovered from a huge crash at Knockhill where he suffered from concussion, made a return at Snetterton and then embarked on testing schedule for the Suzuka Eight-Hours and then another test at Cadwell Park last week. Now Haslam is back on a plane once again, for the Japanese Endurance race, where he will compete for the factory Kawasaki Team.

“We made some good progress but always felt on the back foot. The podium in race one was better than expected considering the issues I had, but I felt the changes in race two weren’t the right way to go and I had to settle for fifth,” said Haslam.

“The positives are, we finally got to test some different chassis set-ups, tyre life in the SC0 was better and we were the top Kawasaki’s in both races. I’m racing at the Suzuka Eight-Hours this weekend which is important but I’m also looking forward to going testing when I return to get everything ready ahead of the next BSB round.”

Team manager Jack Valentine added: “It has been a mixed weekend at Brands Hatch and we have been playing catch up after Leon’s big off at Knockhill. We were really pleased with the podium in the opening race and made some changes for race two but we went the wrong way with that so we knew a podium was out the question.”