Croft British Superbikes: Haslam takes race two win

Leon Haslam has taken his fourth win in five races after finishing in the top spot in the second British Superbikes race at Croft.

Haslam didn’t get a great start, sitting down in fifth on the first, lap but he took advantage of a few mistakes form other riders and put in a real strong second half to work his way up to the front on the penultimate lap and storm away to take the win.

Tom Sykes put in another strong performance on the Rizla Suzuki after sorting the grip issues he had in the first race. Third on the first lap he managed to work his way in to the lead with a very smooth block pass at the hairpin on lap 10 and held it until Haslam got the better of him.

Cal Crutchlow looked like he might be able to lead from flag to flag, sitting in first form the start to lap 10. He continued to fight hard through the second half of the race dicing with Haslam for several laps before he lost out and had to settle for third.

Shayne Byrne had a bad start to the race getting tangled up in the pack on the first lap and dropping right back. He wasn’t put off though and fought really hard throughout the race, consistantly putting in the fastest lap every time round to catch the front runners.

But despite team-mate Leon Camier letting him past in the closing laps he failed to get past Crutchlow and had to settle for fourth, losing his hopes of raping up the championship three rounds early.

Michael Rutter had a good start but a coming together with Camier at the hairpin on lap 3 saw the Ducati rider relegated to fifth place and then he dropped another place to finish 6th behind Camier as Byrne came flying past on his quest for the championship.

Final positions:

1 L. Haslam HM Plant Honda
2 T. Sykes Rizla Suzuki
3 C. Crutchlow HM Plant Honda
4 S. Byrne Airwaves Ducati
5 L. Camier Airwaves Ducati
6 M. Rutter North West 200 Ducati
7 J. Ellison Hydrex-Bike Animal Honda
8 K. Harris Rob Mac Racing Yamaha
9 S. Andrews Lloyds British Yamaha
10 M. Laverty Relentless Suzuki by TAS

Full results