BSB: First crash of the year for series leader Haslam

Bennetts British Superbike series leader Leon Haslam suffered a minor set-back on the opening day at Knockhill as he crashed for the first time in 2018.

Incident free throughout testing at the first four rounds, Haslam tucked the front on the brakes into the Scottish circuit’s opening turn but was able to walk away unscathed.

Haslam topped the opening session with the quickest ever recorded lap of Knockhill, but the incident in the middle of FP2 saw him languish down in ninth on the overall timesheets as rivals improved while he watched from the sidelines.

“That was a big one! Linfoot came out of the pits and I was in a little bit hot!” he explained.

“Normally you respect your brakes over that crest and use the slip road but with Dan there I couldn’t. He didn’t do anything wrong, he was well off line it was just bad timing that he was there as I went in too hot!

“I had to squeeze a bit more brake than I wanted to and locked the brake on the way in… it was a big fast one, I felt like I was going off the end of the earth when I went down that big drop! Hopefully the bike is ok and not too damaged.

“We tried something with the chassis in that session which didn’t feel too great but we were in the 47s straight away and I felt I could have gone faster easily. It was a bit of a wasted session, but that is my first crash of the year! I haven’t crashed in testing or anything. I normally say it’s nice to get one out of the way but it wasn’t ideal to happen then, but I’m all ok so we’ll start again tomorrow.”