Leon Haslam has kicked off his return to the MCE Insurance British Superbike Championship in style by claiming the opening pole position of the season in the first Datatag Extreme Qualifying session of 2016 at Silverstone.
The ‰Û÷Pocket Rocket‰Ûª had been settling into the changing conditions at Silverstone and in the final stage of Datatag Qualifying the JG Speedfit Kawasaki rider pulled the pin, to topple Jason O'Halloran from the top after an impressive time from the Honda Racing contender.
The pair had been pushing at the top in a hectic first session of 2016 and Haslam said: ‰ÛÏI think today was the most nervous, nerve-wracking day of my career. Everything is all a bit new and getting used to a new bike, plus it was the first time I rode it in the wet this morning. We had a bit of an intermediate session in Superpole and that was also the first time that I had used the SC0 tyre in a while, as we did longer runs in testing so I really didn‰Ûªt know how the bike would perform with grip. I think it was the same for everyone and we were pushing on all the time to improve.
‰ÛÏI am kind of relieved to have been on pole position but also super happy. The team have done an awesome job and it has been a very busy few months. Now we need to look at tomorrow and then getting the season underway!‰Û
