Barcelona SBK test, Haslam: “It’s great to be competitive everywhere”

The first day of Superbike testing at the Barcelona circuit smiled upon Leon Haslam and the Honda, who have finished in second place just one tenth behind leader Jonathan Rea. The Englishman is pleased with the result and the improvements made to the CBR1000RR-R, competitive at a track that the "Pocket Rocket" doesn’t deem particularly favourable.

"We’ve had a good day. To be honest, better than I expected considering that we struggled here last year, both during practice and the race. Aside from the lap times, we’ve been competitive in terms of race pace too, which is the thing I’m most pleased about. We’re not far from the frontrunners", explained Haslam at the end of Day 1.

"We’ve focused on the electronics"

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Leon then spoke about the technical work carried out so far: "We’ve focused on the various electronics settings, which were still standard. During recent tests we worked in other areas and particularly on the seat position, to adapt it to my build and riding style. So today we spent the whole day on electronics and we can now say that we’ve put all the pieces together, which means we can finally work on the package as a whole”.

He also commented on the new turn 10 hairpin, modified with respect to last year: "Last year, I didn’t like that corner at all. Now it’s wider and you can get your elbow down, so I think the change is really positive".

Translated by Heather Watson

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