Haslam: Podium bodes well for 2009.

Bring on 2009

The boy did good !

Crutchlow, Haslem and Rea all looked very much at home in WSB today - a testament to the quality of racing in BSB

"Good bye", Troy Bayliss, a racer's racer.

And many congratulations on a battling and skilled ride in race 2 from Leon Haslam who showed his undoubted quality today: as did Rea and Crutchlow. We can already be proud of the inflated British WSB contingent for 2009. The sharp end of the grid will be like BSB over-seas... and we've got a mouth-watering domestic grid for 2009 also.

It's going to be a long winter! Bring it on.

Haslam looked a class act in Portugal - Long may it continue!

Defining moment for me, passing Corser and Neukirchner on his way to 3rd :oD Magic!
Had to have impressed a lot of people, as did Rea and Crutchlow.

Especially as Leon and Cal were running a BSB spec bike!
Factory Honda in WSBK for Haslam, Hill and Rea, not forgetting Byrne on a Factory Ducati and Sykes on a factory Yamaha

The boys will hopefully be unstoppable!

Just imagine how much faster Leon could be if he grew the Haslam family sideburns like his dad?

Ben - what makes you think it was a BSB spec bike? HM Plant have had WSB spec motors available from their road race programme and used them in their previous wild card outing.

Still an outstanding ride from Haslam - I hope the Stiggy bikes are as fast!

Sick,

Eurosport kept saying that they both had BSB specs, i figured that as they usually go round the paddocks and ask these sorts of questions that they'd be right.

If i'm wrong, then fair enough, still a quality ride though

Haslam and Crutchlow did have WSBK engines for this race. Remember this was Burnicle and Whitham who didn't even know that Nakano had signed for Aprilia until Sunday (they said they didn't know on Saturday who was riding) when the deal had already been done and reported at the end of last week.

The one note I would make is that if Haslam/Rea/Sykes and Crutchlow can make their tyres last a race (as so often hasn't been the case in BSB) then they all could be in with a chance of regular podiums in WSBK. All too often they have started well but haven't "managed" their tyres and used them up early only to fade in the latter stages.

Good luck to them all next year though, they certainly have the talent and bikes to do well as we saw this weekend!

DBL - I also heard that during the superpole commentary and was amazed as it had already been reported by Dennis Noyes on 24th Oct and confirmed later by Crash.Net. I beleive Nakano will be testing with Biaggi on Tuesday (Valencia).

I've always thought that Leon got moved up the chain into GP's before he was ready, could be he's ready now.
Great for us British next year, can't wait....I just hope the knockers don't say they only do well cos Troy the Boy has gone.

Twit, they've done very well 3 times when Bayliss was present! last Sunday in Portugal, Brands and Donington. It's gonna be a quality season in 2009

Agree with the tyres, they all learnt from their race 1 tyre blunders in race 2 though! Definitely a good start!

Good ride by Leon
did anyone notice the flags above the rostrum
Italian, Australian, and German ???
since when was Leon Haslam German
someone made a big boo boo.

Danum, they probably thought that neukirchner would retake Haslam

i guess they were just underestimated the Pocket Sprocket! (i know it's rocket, i just think Sprocket is better)

My suspicion is that Schumacher changed them when noone was looking