Haslam: "It's good to be back with Honda"
A new chapter in the career of Leon Haslam in World Superbike is about to get underway as the "Pocket Rocket" returns to Honda for the first time since a positive season with Team Stiggy in 2009. Haslam actually made his World Superbike debut with a Renegade Ducati in 2004 and after Stiggy moved to Suzuki Alstare in 2010. Two more winless seasons with BMW Motorrad Motorsport followed but Haslam has always had a soft spot for Honda and this makes his new venture even more challenging.
"It's good to be back with Honda, this championship is never easy but I'm looking forward to the challenge," he said. "It's nice to be back with them because they were the first to give me an opportunity in racing, so to try and win with them is very exciting."
"With BMW it was a difficult time, it was a very new project when I first joined the company. Last year for me was very tough, I had a lot of injuries and problems. It is disappointing to leave but I have to look forward to the future and my future is with Honda."
A major problem Haslam had over the last two years was being unable to gain full confidence with the S1000RR. For this reason he is looking forward to racing with the CBR1000RR again, a bike thought to be much easier and less complicated to set up.
"It's a bike I already know from '08 and '09 and surely by then Honda has made some improvements. We have many more things to try and test, but overall I'm happy although I need more dry laps, because in three days testing I managed to complete only 20 laps. For sure we need some more."
"They are very different bikes, completely opposite in fact. The BMW, unless the electronics were set in great way it was very difficult to ride, while the Honda is more rideable. There's still a lot to test with the bike but I feel happy straight away."
Haslam's benchmark for next season will clearly be his team-mate Jonathan Rea, Honda's key man over the past few seasons and the only one to take the Japanese four-cylinder machine to victory in the recent past.
"The goal is always to win. Jonathan Rea won races every season. He's always around the top-3, top-5 in the championship so my first aim is to beat him and get the best results we can."
