Q&A: Leon Haslam (Airwaves Ducati).

Following his high speed tumble at Silverstone, Leon Haslam has bounced back to head the time sheets at Oulton Park. He is still a little beaten up but his confidence is high as he told Crash.net Radio........

Question:
You were the fastest man on track during second free practice how has the weekend been progressing so far?

Leon Haslam:
Good actually I've got down to the times where I was last year which is real good and I'm feeling pretty confident. We had a lot of problems at Brands Hatch and Thruxton, we managed to sort ourselves out for Silverstone but obviously we had that big crash - got punted off in one race and a few other issues in the first one. I've just had a lot of bad luck to be fair but I'm feeling a lot happier on the bike and that has shown by being quickest.

Q:
Can you tell us what happened at Silverstone?

LH:
In race one we had a problem after fourteen laps with rear grip and we just went backwards. The second race I got punted off by Shakey Byrne and I don't know what happened there, I think he forgot to shut off. It should have been easily two second places and we ended up a fifth and a sixth.

Q:
How are your injuries?

LH:
I'm a little stiff and sore but the nerves are coming back slowly and they just give me a little bit of stick now. To be fair by dinner time I've freed up quite a bit, and I've been putting ice on it and doing physio so it is getting better it will just take some time.

Q:
Are you feeling confident for this weekend at Oulton Park?

LH:
The Hondas are pretty quick here but we are already down to the times we need to be doing. We'll do some race runs and make sure we can maintain it through the whole race. If it rains on Monday which it is supposed to then I'll feel confident.

Q:
How do you feel about pulling back the point's gap?

LH:
It's a similar gap to where we were last year. We've finished all the races and a lot of the points we got we shouldn't have for the problems we got, so we've got to be grateful for that. We can win races easily enough and anything can happen and just by me winning races hopefully we can close down that gap.