Leon Haslam tops BSB practice: “Always a doubt” Ducati would “suit my style”
“Is it as good as what I think?" Ducati rider fastest in practice at Oulton Park
Leon Haslam answered many of his own doubts on Saturday at Oulton Park.
Haslam topped practice for the first round of the 2025 British Superbike Championship.
The top 12 riders were separated by 0.808s but it was the Moto Rapido Ducati Racing team’s man who went fastest.
Haslam switched from his own BMW to a Ducati for the 2025 BSB campaign and had already told us about the adaptation process.
On Saturday at Oulton Park, Haslam said: “I feel really positive, we had a good test here and with everything we learned at the test, we’ve made the bike a little bit better again and have been P1 in both sessions.
“We’ve actually only been concentrating on the race runs and tried to put some long laps together to understand this new tyre. So it is so far so good, and we’ll see what tomorrow brings.
“Obviously I’ve been wanting to get on the Ducati for a long time, it’s been a very competitive bike and there’s always that doubt in your mind of whether it will suit my style.
“Is it as good as what I think, and it’s better than what I remember? It’s amazing!
“The team have done a fantastic job, but we’ve just got to stay calm and take it step by step.
“There’s a lot of fast guys with fast pace so at the minute we’re doing a really good job, we’re understanding the bike and the tyres and we just need to put it together for the rest of the weekend.”
The first races of the BSB season are on Sunday and Monday.
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
