Leon Haslam felt “in with a shout” of BSB win in final Oulton Park race
Leon Haslam was able to challenge BSB triple race winner Kyle Ryde over the closing stages before having to settle for his third second place at Oulton Park.
Haslam had been the closest rider to Kyle Ryde’s dominant performance all weekend, cutting the deficit between each race to finish closer to the Ducati.
The third and final race of the opening BSB round at Oulton Park saw Haslam really able to challenge, leading after taking over from Bradley Ray, then able to pass again when Ryde was out front in the closing stages.
After the race, in the podium race reaction press conference, the 2018 champion spoke of how he finally felt he had a chance to take a win.
“With about four to go, when I got to the back of him again I thought, I don’t know, you’re in with a shout.”
Haslam also revealed the thing he found toughest to live with was the relentless consistent pace that fellow Ducati man Ryde was able to run, adding:
“I made a bit of a lunge and nearly coming together over the start/finish, but yeah, the last two laps I think he was back down to 33.0- so he had a super consistent strong pace.”
Haslam took time to thank his Moto Rapido team, as with all the Ducati riders, their first taste of the 2026 bikes did not come until the Oulton Park test right before the season proper, so his mechanics and engineers are still refining the package and what is possible, so far pulling what was almost a six second gap in race one down to 1.162s over the line in the final race of the meeting:
“But big credit to Moto Rapido as well. You know, race one we didn’t really have a shout. Race two we actually had good pace, just not consistency.
And that last race we managed to make a pass with a couple of laps to go. So that progression over the weekend’s been amazing. And for round one, we’ll take three seconds.”
The championship moves on to Donington Park in just under two weeks time with Haslam arriving just six points behind Ryde after the first three races.
