Having trouble viewing this email? Laguna Seca - United States 12.07.2014 Row three for Haslam at Laguna Seca Pata Honda rider Leon Haslam will start tomorrow’s two ninth-round World Superbike championship races from the third row of the grid after setting the seventh fastest time in this afternoon’s Superpole at Laguna Seca in the USA. The 31-year-old British rider, who has significantly improved his best time from last year’s race weekend at Laguna, lapped the 3.610km Californian circuit in a time of 1m23.181s on his Honda CBR1000RR machine in preparation for Sunday’s two 25-lap races. His Pata Honda team-mate, Jonathan Rea, is racing at Laguna Seca for the first time and looked to be heading for a top six qualifying position in Superpole before crashing out at Laguna’s final turn. The 27-year-old from Northern Ireland remounted but was unable to improve his time, leaving him in tenth position on tomorrow’s grid. Leon Haslam - P7, 1m23.181s Honestly, I didn’t quite get the most out of the qualifier but it’s the first time all year that I’ve gone quicker on a qualifying tyre than a race tyre. I was a little cautious but the bike was working pretty good. I thought we’d get two laps out of the qualifier but I kind of made a mistake on the first one and that was it. But I’m not too unhappy – maybe a top six was possible if everything had gone to plan, but I’ll take seventh. It’s the highest dry qualifying we’ve had for a while and I’m feeling pretty good on race pace. I’ll try to get away with the boys in front and see how we go. Jonathan Rea - P10, 1m23.501s I’m really disappointed with my Superpole result because I made a mistake in the final corner on my first lap with the Q and crashed. It made it very hard to go fast again, even though I was able to re-mount and go again. But I couldn’t go faster than I went on my race tyre. I’m really gutted because tenth place is a fourth row start and it’s a long way back, especially at a circuit like Laguna where it’s difficult to pass. It’s definitely made tomorrow tough work but you can look at these things two ways. I’m going to take the positive view and go out tomorrow and really do the best I can and fight for what I can achieve. I think I can enjoy that side of it because I know our pace is quite good. They guys have done a great job all weekend making the bike better and better and we’ve made good progress. It makes it more disappointing not to at least give ourselves a fighting chance for a podium with a good start, but we’ll do the best we can from the fourth row and I’m really up for it. Pieter Breddels - technical co-ordinator Leon has made more progress today but he didn’t really have much grip on the SC0 race tyre in the first part of Superpole. Then when he put the qualifier in he was a bit cautious because of that. But he put it in seventh place which is OK and his race pace is good, although we could do with a couple of tenths here and there. He’s been riding well though, and hopefully he can get a good start to be in a position to get a good finish. Jonathan made some steps and found some pace on race tyres but we still need a little more. It was very unfortunate that on his qualifying lap he was on his way to a second row finish until he crashed in the last corner. Luckily he wasn’t hurt but he couldn’t improve his lap time. Tenth place is not where we want to start but we will have to go with what we have and ho pe he gets a couple of good starts tomorrow. Weather Sunny Air 22°C Track 43°C Humidity 52% Qualifying Results 1 Tom Sykes 1m21.811s GBR KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team 2 Sylvain Guintoli 1m22.339s FRA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team 3 Chaz Davies 1m22.384s GBR DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team 4 Davide Guigliano 1m22.422s ITA DUCATI Ducati Superbike Team 5 Marco Melandri 1m22.704s ITA APRILIA Aprilia Racing Team 6 Eugene Laverty 1m22.725s IRL SUZUKI Voltcom Crescent Suzuki 7 Leon Haslam 1m23.181s GBR HONDA Pata Honda 8 Loris Baz 1m23.242s FRA KAWASAKI Kawasaki Racing Team 9 Toni Elias 1m23.358s ESP APRILIA Red Devils Roma 10 Jonathan Rea 1m23.501s GBR HONDA Pata Honda Copyright-free images © 2014 Pata Honda. For more copyright-free media, please register or log in at media.patahonda or email media@patahonda To unsubscribe from this service please click here.
Posted on: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 12:24:07 +0000
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