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Leon Haslam made a brief return to the WorldSBK stage for the final Round of the 2016 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship, aboard a Kawasaki for Pedercini Racing.  It was exactly a year ago that the Brit raced in WorldSBK at the infamous desert circuit. In his last outing at the Losail International Circuit in 2015, he competed aboard an Aprilia and he won Race 2, beating this year’s winner, Chaz Davies.

In his attempt this weekend, the Brit did an exceptional job despite getting off to a rocky start at the beginning of the weekend. Haslam only got in a couple of laps of the first practice before qualifying in 16^th position. In Race 1, Haslam finished 11^th, a decent finish after a year competing outside of the World Championship. However in Race 2, he found a rhythm with the Kawasaki brought the Pedercini machine home for a top five finish in fifth.

“Obviously I had a tough start after missing the first practice and getting used to the bike,” said Haslam. “We’ve had our fair share of problems this weekend but to finish on a high with a fifth is pretty good. We made some really good starts and we were up to third at one point so over the moon really we couldn’t ask for anymore, big thanks to my sponsors and Pedercini for giving me the opportunity to come out and have some fun with the guys.”

At one point the British rider was fighting in third in the early laps of the restarted race. “To be honest with you my early laps were quite good,” admitted Haslam. “I went from 16^th to 5^th in the first part and then obviously went from 8^th to 3^rd after the restart, so I knew that in the early laps I could make the difference but from that point we were struggling to run the same pace of Jonny and Chaz and Tom. But we did what we did and I was pretty happy with the end result.”