VALENCIA TEST LEAVES HASLAM PREPARED FOR 2010
LEON HASLAM completed the two-day test at the Valencia circuit in Spain on Thursday and the Alstare Suzuki rider now believes he can challenge for honours in 2010.
"We've had a pretty solid test schedule since I joined the Alstare Suzuki Team seven weeks ago and I believe we're on course to be at the front next year," said Haslam.
He continued: "Today's final day of testing went really well and I'm pleased with the constant lap times I'm able to achieve. I'm about a second a lap faster than I was in the races at Valencia this year and I finished fifth in both races so I have to be optimistic about my chances.
"All of the tyre testing we did today went well, every rider had one each of the two new specification Pirelli rear race tyres and I was pleased with the performance and the way the tyres matched the Suzuki.
"We also eliminated a lot of settings and parts that we needed to test so I'm heading into the six-week break before the Portimao test feeling pretty good."
Haslam finished the test as the second fastest rider over the two days. His fastest lap of 1m 34.0s was 0.6s inside the lap record and just 0.2s slower than the day's fastest lap from Max Biaggi on the factory Aprilia.
Ends