Leon Haslam (Stiggy Racing Honda CBR1000RR) secured two strong fifth place finishes in 23-lap World Superbike races at Valencia to maintain his overall fifth placing in the championship. Leon was top Honda rider again, and now leaves for the next round at Assen with 58 points, only two behind fourth place and seven behind third.
In the first race of the day, held in dry conditions, Haslam improved from tenth in Superpole to fifth in the race, as both Jonathan Rea (Hannspree Ten Kate Honda CBR1000RR) and local rider Carlos Checa (Hannspree Ten Kate Honda CBR1000RR) crashed out. Rea had been seventh in Superpole qualifying; Checa was eighth on the grid.
In race two Checa worked his way through to sixth, three seconds from Haslam, while Ryuichi Kiyonari (Ten Kate Honda Racing CBR1000RR) was ninth after also qualifying in that same position. In race one he was a disappointed 12th.
Haslam’s new team-mate, John Hopkins (Stiggy Racing Honda CBR1000RR) was just outside the top ten in race one, backing up a great qualifying result of 16th out of 30 riders. This is his first-ever WSB weekend, after spending most of his career on GP machinery, and he was set for an even better finish in race two until the last few laps, when fuel-limiting issues slowed his pace dramatically. Hopkins went 12th, Rea recovered from his race one fall to go 13th in race two.
Tommy Hill (Honda Althea Racing CBR1000RR) fought off gearbox setting issues in race one to record a point for 15th place, but in a warmer race two lost front grip early and had to settle for a finish in 22nd place.
Vittorio Iannuzzo (Squadra Corse Italia Honda CBR1000RR) crashed in race one, and was just behind Hill in race two.
In the points ranking, Rea, Kiyonari and Checa sit 10th, 11th and 12th respectively, Hopkins is already 18th and Hill is 20th, on six points, having scored in four races out of six so far.
Leon Haslam said:
“I am happy with my top five results today. I didn’t really have the best of starts in the second race and had to pass all the other Hondas so by the time I caught Neukirchner and passed him for fifth the leading group was gone again. My pace was quick enough to run with the front group if I had the start that we wanted. We made some good progress and got the most out of what we had for this weekend.”
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