BSB: Haslam: 'I was lucky to get away with that!'

Bennetts British Superbike championship leader Leon Haslam walked away from a monstrous highside on the opening day of action at Silverstone.

The JG Speedfit Kawasaki rider was ejected from his ZX-10RR when tipping into the fast, Brooklands left hander towards the end of the 1.6-mile Silverstone national circuit.

Fortunately landing on his back with the fall cushioned by his Dainese airbag suit, Haslam was able to get back on his feet right away and after a quick check in the medical centre was given the OK to participate in the afternoon’s second session.

While the rider was all good, his Kawasaki took a significant beating with an estimated £30,000 worth of damage leading to an entire rebuild of the bike.

“That wasn’t what I wanted in FP1,” Haslam told MCN. “It was one of my biggest highsides ever, I was lucky to get away with that. I was just trying to get up to speed, we were using the harder tyre because it’s a bit colder this weekend and we’ve not done much on that tyre this year, so that didn’t help and it’s the only left hand corner of the whole lap so the tyre was quite glazed on that side.

“Cooper was out touring, so I dove underneath him – it was a combination of everything, pushing a hard tyre on the left side, going underneath a slower rider and it bit me, hard! I’m OK, banged my ankle and cut my little finger but also left the boys with a lot of work! That left us on the back foot a bit for the second session as we’d lost track time and we were out on a completely new bike.”

Despite the crash and the lost time, Haslam rounded out the opening day sixth fastest.  

Race control CCTV footage reveals huge high side for Haslam pic.twitter.com/VDJwxLt34f

— Bennetts British Superbike Championship (@OfficialBSB) September 7, 2018