Assen: Suzuki Alstare Saturday report

LEON COMFORTABLE ON FRONT ROW AND READY TO CHARGE. Team Suzuki Alstare rider Leon Haslam finished Superpole with the fourth quickest lap and will start tomorrow's pair of 22-lap races from the front row of the grid. The young Briton was always in ...

LEON COMFORTABLE ON FRONT ROW AND READY TO CHARGE.

Team Suzuki Alstare rider Leon Haslam finished Superpole with the fourth quickest lap and will start tomorrow's pair of 22-lap races from the front row of the grid. The young Briton was always in contention to win Superpole, but fellow countryman Jonathan Rea (Honda) had tested at Assen recently and used his greater knowledge of the new section of the track to good advantage and stormed to his first ever World Superbike Superpole victory. Jakub Smrz (Ducati) took second, with Troy Corser (BMW) third. Leon's team mate Sylvain Guintoli improved from yesterday, but was unable to get his qualifiers to work and ended 13th overall.

Leon - 4th, 1:35.330
I am on the front row, so I'm happy. Anything else would've been a bit of a disappointment the way the season is going and although pole would've been good, front row is fine. I'm pretty happy with the bike on race tyres, but I didn't go any quicker on qualifying tyres, so that's good for the races tomorrow. I'm not sure why we didn't go any faster on qualifying tyres and it's an area that we'll have to look at next time out.

My last lap today would've been faster, but I made a little mistake in the last sector and lost time. I'm not sure if it would've been fast enough to beat Jonathan, but it might've been good enough to get ahead of Jakub and Troy. It's going to be a long, hard day tomorrow, but I don't usually suffer physically in races, so I'm looking forward to fighting for podiums again and keeping my series lead.

Sylvain - 13th, 1:36.327
Yesterday was pretty bad and although today was better, I should've improved more and gone faster. At least today, I felt more confident in the front end and was able to push harder. But I didn't get much feel from my qualifying tyres this afternoon and so couldn't go any quicker. We need to do some more work on the rear end and tomorrow I need to make two really good starts and be in the leading group. If that doesn't happen, it's going to be a very long day indeed.