Leon Haslam has admitted that he has endured a ‘crap' first half to the 2008 British Superbike Championship – but he insists that the battle for the crown is far from over yet, even if the odds are stacked heavily against him.
The pre-season title favourite has indeed had a torrid first seven rounds of the campaign, with not so much as a single victory from the opening 14 races – leaving him sitting a distant fourth in the riders' standings, counting barely half the points total of series leader Shane ‘Shakey' Byrne on the Airwaves Ducati.
There are still 300 points left up for grabs, however, beginning at
Oulton Park this weekend, and the 25-year-old – a man who has been a BSB championship challenger in each of the last four years, somewhat ironically switching teams from the now pace-setting Airwaves Ducati to HM Plant Honda for the current season – is adamant that he is far from throwing in the towel.
“It's been a crap season, to be fair,” the son of 1980s GP legend ‘Rocket' Ron Haslam reflected, speaking exclusively to
Crash.net Radio during last weekend's Goodwood Festival of Speed. “That's as blunt as I can put it actually! It's tough, but you have those seasons.
“The bike is brand new – new for me and new for the team – but it's getting there. We've had a lot of bad luck regarding the championship, but in all fairness when everything is going half-reasonably we're never outside the top two and always challenging for the lead.
“In hindsight, we're there or thereabouts, but we're not happy yet, and I know when we do get happy we'll be wining races. That's all I can really ask for.
“Our chances at Oulton are very good actually; in the first round there [in 2008], basically we battled with ‘Shakey' all the way to the last corner and he just pipped me, and in the second race I was battling for the lead as well. Now we've made a lot of progress since then, and hopefully that will put us in good stead.
