BSB: Haslam: 'It just wasn't meant to be'

Leon Haslam left Brands Hatch this weekend distraught not to have taken his debut MCE British Superbike title after a disastrous weekend all but ruled him out of the fight after the first of three races.

A snapped handlebar in the second qualifying session left him with no choice but to jump off his ZX-10R at Stirling’s bend to avoid a serious incident leaving him 17^th on the grid for Saturday’s first race. Despite this, it looked as though Haslam would fight on through after a strong start as the opening race got underway but everything would soon change with two red flags interrupting proceedings as the weather closed in. Falling from the first lap of the third and final restart, Haslam faced the task of bridging a 27-point gap come the second race on Sunday – a challenge that turned out to be insurmountable for the former WSB race winner.

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“We just had one of those weekends; it’s not how I wanted to end the championship but with what got thrown at us I know I did everything I could. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. We won the same amount of races, had the same amount of podiums and actually scored four more points than Shakey over the year, it’s just I crashed twice in the Showdown.

“The problem with BSB is things are so competitive this year, if you get a bad grid position that can ruin your whole weekend and with the crashes in qualifying and race one, that’s what happened here. We made it tough for ourselves but we almost did it.” 

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