LEON Haslam endured another frustrating weekend in the World Superbike Championship at Silverstone.
Seventh place in the first race – won by his Pata Honda team-mate Jonathan Rea – was a decent enough finish.
- Leon Haslam leads a group of riders as he battles towards seventh place in race one at Silverstone yesterday.
But Haslam crashed out two laps from the finish in the second race in the rain – landing heavily on the leg he broke earlier in the season.
X-rays revealed no further damage but the Derbyshire racer still has a hospital date this week for further surgery on the injured limb.
Race one in the ninth round of the series was delayed by 20 minutes for rain and shortened by a lap.
As light rain began to fall on lap six, 26-year-old Rea moved to the front and extended his lead to more than six seconds before easing off in the closing two laps.
Thirty-year-old Haslam reached as high as third place during the damp conditions of race one but slipped back to finish seventh at the flag.
Rea got a slow start to race two, circulating in ninth place before making a steady climb towards another podium challenge.
However, the red flags that came out after Haslam's crash prevented any further progress, leaving Rea as the overall Silverstone winner as the Championship goes into a month-long summer break.
Haslam can at least use that break to get further fitness back into his leg.
"It's been a frustrating weekend, really, and we had issues right the way through until warm-up in the morning," he said,
"We made a big step forward for that and I had pretty good pace in race one but starting from back in 12th place was quite hard work.
"I managed to get up to a position to fight for the podium but made a few mistakes late on and missed out on that.
"I got a terrible start to race two and got stuck behind Davide Guigliano but started to make my way through and into the top 10.
"Unfortunately, the rain came and I got caught out with a big highside.
"My leg's pretty sore and I've got an operation to take some screws out this week.
A month off will be good for the leg though and in Germany (for the next round) I know I'll be a lot fitter.
"At least we know the bike's working in in-between conditions, with Johnny's race one win, but we're also still making good progress day-by-day in full dry conditions."
Rea declared that his 11th Championship win was one of his best.
"Race one was probably one of the sweetest victories of my career because to ride out-front in those conditions was quite scary," he said.
"I was so happy for the whole team and our sponsors but I had to be very cautious.
"I also had to be smart and, as I saw the gap heading into the last few laps, I didn't want to be throwing away that kind of lead.
"My team gave me a great bike after we pulled something out for Superpole that worked in the dry.
"We made a good change for race two and got up to fourth after I got stuck behind Tom Sykes for a few laps.
"The race two result was OK but we can go into the summer break happy enough that we've got an overall package that can challenge for podiums."
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