Endurance: New tyres give Haslam needed pace

Team Green Kawasaki rider Leon Haslam is quietly confident ahead of tomorrow’s Superpole for the Suzuka 8 Hour, after admitting to MCN that he believes that the team are in a strong place for Sunday’s race.

Coming after a strong qualifying that saw him finishing second in his group to only MotoGP racer Pol Espargaró, the BSB rider says that finally getting a new tyre, limited thanks to rules on how many they can use, made all the difference.

“I felt pretty comfortable from the start, and we’ve been doing a lot of runs on older tyres – up until Q2 the newest tyre I had was 12 laps old. A new tyre in that session made a second’s difference straight away. I didn’t get a perfect lap on it, though because it was quite different on the bike with that much grip.

“But I think on a new race tyre I could do high 2:06 laps, which only the fastest Yamaha has done. We’re competitive there. And over race distance, I can keep it in the 2:08s. It’s all about how the race goes though, about how you get through the traffic and how the team do.”

However, before Sunday’s race Haslam will first get a chance for something he’s been able to practice in British Superbikes in recent weeks – a one lap flying Superpole.

“It looks like we should get a better tyre for Superpole, but I’d like to try that before the one lap, because adding grip changes our bike so much. It actually makes it more difficult to turn the bike in. Maybe we’ll need a different approach for that.”