Leon Haslam reeling in Scott Redding, “bit of a shame” that rain stopped play in Assen.

Leon Haslam was happy with a podium but closing in so fast he felt it was a “little bit of a shame” that the rain worsened and stopped play in the first Showdown British Superbikes race  at Assen.

The racer with the most Assen wins in BSB was sixth on the grid and made a good launch on the wet track only to go backwards in a tentative opening few corners for most of the field, Haslam explained:

“I actually got a really good start. I was third away from sixth and I hit a few white lines on the back straight and I kind of dropped back quite a long way. I think I was down at seventh or eighth at one point and I found my way through them quite easily.”

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Redding had excelled in the wet, his recent experience at Assen balancing out the tricky conditions, and allowing him to push out a lead of over four seconds, while behind the Moto Rapido Ducati rider was re-working his way forward.

Once there the gap rapidly came down as Redding struggled with visibility and Haslam pushed on:

“By then Scott had already got his head down and he was quite a way up the road. I felt like I had a pretty good rhythm, that was kind of reeling him in and then I got a little bit excited and had a few moments of my own and then obviously the rain came.”

At the red flag Haslam had dropped the gap to 1.907 seconds and was visibly closer in the spray behind. That lead Haslam to muse what might had been had conditions been a little safer, though the #91 was still happy with second place on the podium after the red flagged race:

“So yeah, a little bit of a shame that it did get ended early but at the same time we’ll take a podium. We’ll see what tomorrow brings with the weather and everything else.”