Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Haslam relishing home race opportunity

Arai sponsored rider LEON HASLAM is aiming to return to the podium in Sundays ninth round of the World Superbike Championship at Donington Park, GB after a troubled run of races in the last four rounds.

Haslam is sixth in the Championship and knows the Donington Park circuit as well as anybody after working on his father Rons Race School at the circuit in the past 10 years.

"I only live up the road from Donington so its more than just the home round for me, its like being in my backyard", said Haslam. "The last four rounds have been on circuits Ive never raced on before or where Ive visited just once so we knew it would be a tough few weeks.

The Stiggy team has been working extremely hard to get us back on the pace and hopefully back into the top three like we were in Australia and Holland. Last weekends Misano round was messy with the wet weather and problems with our machine but its moved us a step forward.

This remains a learning year for the team and myself and that means a lot of hard work. Im just so pleased that the team owner Johan Stigefelt has put the right people in place around me to deal with that work."

Haslam is one point behind the fifth-placed rider, factory Aprilia-mounted Italian Max Biaggi, and is optimistic of climbing the standings even further in the final six rounds.

"As a new team weve been searching for consistency all year but now theres a genuine feeling that were just about there. Id like to get that under way with a good qualifying run and two good finishes at Donington on Sunday.

There are 15 factory machines out there so do what we have been doing as a relatively private operation is good but its not good enough, we can do better. Sixth place in the Championship would probably have been acceptable at the start of the year but after coming so close to winning in Holland the race victories have to be our target now."
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