Third row for Haslam in Istanbul

[totalmotorcycle]

Third row for #Haslam in #Istanbul


Leon Haslam will start tomorrow’s two 11th-round World Superbike races from the third row of the grid after setting the ninth-fastest time in this afternoon’s Superpole at Istanbul Park in Turkey.



The 30-year-old Pata Honda rider was unable to make the improvements he sought after yesterday’s qualifying after rain washed out much of this morning’s qualifying and practice sessions.



His stand-in team-mate, Michel Fabrizio, who is riding as a replacement for the injured Jonathan Rea, will start the two 18-lap races around the 5.340km circuit directly behind Haslam on the grid after setting the 12th-fastest time today.



Leon Haslam – P9, 1m56.463s



It didn’t help sitting in the garage today until Superpole, but that’s the way it goes with the weather sometimes. We tried a few things in Superpole 1, which weren’t amazing at the start but we made a good change on the race tyre. I was able to drop into the 56s on race rubber, which I was very happy with. We had a few of the old gremlins when we used the qualifiers and only went 0.3 or 0.4s faster. But there’s so much more potential to go a lot faster with some more track time. I felt we could at least get on the second row here, but we’ll have to do a bit more work tomorrow. Warm-up will be important for more track time. Hopefully it’ll be dry and we can go in the right direction.



Michel Fabrizio - P12, 1m57.371s



I am still learning the bike and the circuit step-by-step but I am happy. The feeling with the bike is improving but we will make a big change with the set-up of the bike tomorrow morning – both at the front and the rear – and try this in warm-up. I hope this can help but, at the moment, it is a combination of new rider, new bike new circuit.



Pieter Breddels – technical co-ordinator



We lost a complete session due to rain this morning and that stopped our progress because we needed all the track time we could get, especially with Michel being new to the bike. He ended up 12th and some issues have been revealed, which are interesting as he has come from a different machine. We improved with Leon but not enough – the others just improved more and the gap to the front is not how we would like it. We have warm-up tomorrow to try to give Leon a bike with which he can fight for top six or higher.



2013 World Superbike championship, round 11 – Istanbul Park, Turkey

Final qualifying results and first two rows:

1. Tom Sykes (GBR) Kawasaki 1m54.872s

2. Sylvain Guintoli (FRA) Aprilia 1m54.894s

3. Davide Giugliano (ITA) Aprilia 1m55.073s

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4. Eugene Laverty (IRL) Aprilia 1m55.340s

5. Toni Elias (ESP) Aprilia 1m55.546s

6. Jules Cluzel (FRA) Suzuki 1m55.624s

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9. Leon Haslam (GBR) Pata Honda 1m56.463s

12. Michel Fabrizio (ITA) Pata Honda 1m57.371s