BSB: Haslam: 'We need to beat Shakey'

Leon Haslam is determined to bring a halt to Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne’s run of good form as the MCE British Superbike championship heads to Cadwell Park this weekend.

Byrne has been almost unbeatable over the last three rounds, culminating in a commanding double victory at Brands Hatch three weeks’ ago, but the battle lines have been drawn after a positive test at the Lincolnshire circuit for Haslam and the JG Speedfit Kawasaki squad.

Remarkably, Haslam still holds the lap record for Cadwell from his days with Airwaves Ducati in 2007, but both he and Byrne matched that in their respective tests at the quirky British track.

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Byrne currently sits 25 points ahead of Haslam in the standings and more crucially has a 14-point advantage in podium credits, but that’s something former WSB star Haslam is set on changing over the five races remaining before the Showdown kicks off at Donington next month. 

“We have to beat Shakey this weekend, and at Oulton so we can get the podium points on a more equal footing before the showdown,” Haslam told MCN. “The Ducati is strong, there’s no doubt about that. They’ve got a full factory bike with a lot of support and they’ve done a good job with it.

“For the last few rounds, every weekend has been a grind; it’s not been easy and we’ve been out of the top 15 before Superpole. No weekend has gone as planned or as smooth as we’d have liked, but after our test I’m feeling good for Cadwell. We found a few issues, solved a few issues and tried some things we wouldn’t be able to try on a race weekend. I want to be able to go into FP1 already able to set a time good enough for first or second and then focus on putting that into a race distance so we can win on Monday.” 

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