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Suzuki Alstare's Leon Haslam suffered the ups and downs of racing in the seventh round of this year's Superbike World Championship at the Miller Motorsports Park. He took a hard-fought runner-up spot in the first race and then battled up to sixth place in race two after a poor start, but was high-sided from his GSX-R1000 and crashed out of the race. He got a lift back to the pits and then went to the Clinica Mobile where he had seventeen stitches put into his left arm just above his elbow. Fortunately he suffered no other injuries and will be fit for the next round in Misano towards the end of June.

"Obviously I am very disappointed how the day ended. Crashing out is bad enough, but losing the championship lead is another," he said. "I always knew that today was going to be very hard and the races proved that. I was fortunate to get second place in race one and unfortunate to crash in race two. Carlos (Checa) should've won both races and I feel a bit sorry for him. He had led both, but then had to pull out. As a result, Max got lucky, but racing is like that sometimes.

"I didn't make particularly good starts today and maybe that caused some of the problems. In race one, I was right behind Jakub (Smrz) when his Ducati blew up. I and the front of my Suzuki got covered in oil and I tried to use a different line to him so that I wouldn't crash on his oil. I think I was stuck behind him for over a lap, but luckily he pulled off the track and I was able to get my head down and chase after the leaders. I moved through the field and got into third and happy with that until Carlos stopped and I was gifted second. I was tenth at the end of the first lap in race two and once again I had a lot of work to do to catch the leaders. I managed to get up to sixth after seven laps, but then the bike suddenly let go at one of the hairpins and I was highsided. I had a load of stitches put into my left arm, just above the elbow, but I will be OK for Misano."