BSB: Haslam 'not taking risks' on opening day

MCE British Superbike championship leader Leon Haslam says he was careful not to take too many risks on the opening day of action at the 2017 series finale.

The JG Speedfit Kawasaki star was third quickest overall after FP2 despite completing just a handful of laps in the sketchy conditions this morning.

Haslam holds a 32-point lead over nearest series rival Josh Brookes and 33-points over quickest man on Friday Shane Byrne, and securing that first crown is clearly on his mind.

“It’s been a positive day,” he told MCN. “We made quite a few changes and have been in and out of the pits quite a bit. We’ve arrived at a set-up we’re happy with and have tried various things. The pace came down quite comfortably, we aren’t taking too many risks at the minute so we’re taking it step by step. There’s definitely more to come so for a Friday we’re quite happy.

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“The bike is quite different to when we were here in July, the weight balance is totally different, the way we are managing the engine is quite different too.

“This morning was a wasted session, I didn’t want to risk too much then we’ve been building things up quite nicely. Shane has good pace as would be expected and I think Josh has some good pace up his sleeve as he spent the entire second session on one tyre. Those two are the threats but there’s no doubt people like Hopper, Iddon and Laverty will be pushing for a good result this weekend. Hopefully we can have a good race with the guys we need to race and not get caught up in something we don’t want to be caught up in.”

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