Leon maintains podium place at every round

Despite problems throughout the weekend and in the first race, Leon Haslam (Suzuki Alstare) maintained his impressive run of scoring at least one podium in every round at Misano. He struggled with clutch and electronics problems in race 1, but carried on fighting hard to take eighth place. The team came up with some ideas to improve the bike for race 2 and luckily they worked. This time round Leon was able to compete as normal and battled from seventh on the grid up to a superb second place and his eleventh podium of the season.

"After the issues we've had this weekend (to do with the clutch and electronics) I thought that 8th in race 1 was probably the best we'd get this weekend. But, all credit to the team because they went back to a setting that we used in USA and South Africa and the bike was much better in the second race. Race 2 felt like normal and the bike felt a million times better than race 1, but I've got so many blisters on my hands because I was trying so hard. I took a lap or two too long to pass Troy (Corser) and Michel (Fabrizio) in the second race and by then Max was too far ahead to catch. Max is riding well and the Aprilia is currently the package to beat, but I'm confident that, as long as we all work hard, we can beat him. We do all our own development work and it's because of all the hard work, that we are competitive. If Suzuki Japan wanted to give us some more help, it would be much appreciated and it would be a great benefit to us all. In the meantime, I'm going to keeping fighting for more and podiums. That was my aim before the season began, and it's still the same now."