Third row start for Haslam at Donington
The Stiggy Racing Honda pairing of Leon Haslam and John Hopkins will start tomorrow's two 23-lap Superbike races for the ninth round of the World Superbike championship from a third row on the grid.
Leon Haslam opened the first day of provisional qualifying second fastest in his chase to secure a front row start for his home race at the 4.023km Donington Park.
Both Hopkins and Haslam graduated through the first 12-minute superpole shootout and finished in eighth and tenth position respectively. Leon Haslam only fell 0.003s short of reaching the third superpole, following a flying lap posted by Carlos Checa in the ultimates minutes of the second shootout and will now start tomorrow's race - led by pole sitter Ben Spies - from a ninth place on the grid.
Leon Haslam, P9 - 1'30.159s:
"I have been struggling a little bit this afternoon. We tried a few things with the electronics, but we went the wrong way with it and ended up back to where it was initially. I am pretty happy with my lap times, it is just a little bit unfortunate I didn't make it through to the last superpole. The times were all pretty close and just 0.1s faster would have put me in third place. I am ninth on the third row on the grid with some of the other British riders, and am looking forward to the start of the race and hopefully we can have a good one tomorrow."
Johan Stigefelt, Team Manager:
"It is good to see both riders qualify for Superpole. We are ninth and 11th, which is fine. I think Leon expected a little more to be honest, and was maybe hoping to get into the top three, but it didn't work out today and the margins are just so small. It looks like we have found a good race set up for both riders and they can both be pretty strong in the race. John has put in a fantastic job. It is unbelievable, he is still far away from being fit and has a lot of pain, but he just pushed hard and has shown he is a class act rider. We'll have to see what happens tomorrow, but I am confident we can have a good race with both riders."