Leon Haslam

Leon Lloyd Haslam (born 31 May 1983 in the London Borough of Ealing^[1]) is a motorcycle racer from England. He began racing at an early age and by the time he was in his late teens, he had raced in most of the significant British and international championships. Between 2005 and 2008 he was a regular front-runner in the British Superbike Championship. For 2009 he switched to the Superbike World Championship, remaining there in 2010 (his third full season in the class) on a factory Suzuki. Haslam is nicknamed 'Pocket Rocket' and is the son of 'Rocket' Ron Haslam.

Early Days 1998–2003

Haslam was first exposed to motorcycle racing as a baby, often travelling with his parents to his dad's races. He was 1995 and 1996's National Youth Motocross champion,^[2] and 1998's MCN Young Rider of the Year after finishing 7th in the British 125cc Championship. He did an assortment of 125cc races in 1999, but quickly advanced into international racing after that. Leon spent the 2000 season with the underprepared Italjet team on their return to the 125cc world championship, then racing a privateer Honda NSR500V in 2001 (scoring five points finishes, as the youngest rider ever to compete in the series), and a 250cc Honda in 2002 (again scoring points five times). At this stage, having never ridden on competitive machinery, he had valuable experience but little in the way of results, leading him to return home. For 2003 Renegade Ducati signed him to ride in the British Supersport championship, but he was promoted to the full blown Superbike after the departure of Sean Emmett,^[3] also riding in six World Superbikes races with a best finish of sixth at Assen and Magny Cours.

World Superbike Championship 2004

For 2004 he did the full WSBK season for Renegade alongside Noriyuki Haga. He was 8th overall with a best of 3rd, finishing as the rookie of the year. Haslam also had an impressive victory in a British Superbike race at Brands Hatch on one of the team's 3 ventures into the series. In torrential rain, this was the only Ducati win in the series all year, even though this was the title-winning bike in both 2003 (Shane "Shakey" Byrne) and 2005 (Gregorio Lavilla).

British Superbikes 2005–2008

With Renegade switching to Honda machinery and cutting to one rider^[4] Haslam moved to BSB with the reformed GSE Racing Squad, now known as Airwaves Ducati. Haslam finished 4th overall behind only team-mate Lavilla and the two HM Plant Hondas of Ryuichi Kiyonari and Michael Rutter.

2006 saw Leon once again on the Airwaves sponsored GSE Ducati 999, partnering Lavilla. In the first 12 races of the 2006 season he finished 2nd no less than 8 times, without winning a race but taking 3 poles and lying 2nd overall. The wins came later; he was particularly proud of a win in the wet at Croft.

He managed to push for the title all the way to the last race of the season at a rain soaked Brands Hatch where Leon, Lavilla and Kiyonari all had a chance to win. Leon was running second to Kiyo in the first race when it was stopped after Byrne crashed heavily, and despite storming to victory in the second race, he ended the season in second place and Lavilla (who crashed in race one) was third. Leon did however drive off in the £50,000 Audi convertible which was his prize for scoring the most points in the Audi pole position competition.

While Lavilla won the first four races and lead the championship after eight, Haslam struggled to match these results. However, two second places at Oulton Park in round four moved him up to fourth overall. He ultimately finished 3rd, behind Kiyonari and Jonathan Rea's Hondas but ahead of a fading Lavilla.

Haslam was released by Airwaves Ducati for 2008, when they initially withdrew from the series over questions about the legality of the Ducati 1098 under the new BSB tuning rules.^[5] He joined Airwaves' rivals HM Plant Honda, but the Ducati proved to be the faster bike, with Shakey Byrne dominating the championship. Haslam struggled early in the season ^[6] and was generally outpaced by younger team-mate Cal Crutchlow, and was excluded from race 2 at Oulton Park after a racing incident with Tom Sykes.^[7] Despite several podium finishes his first win did not come until round 8 at Knockhill, when race leader Byrne crashed heavily.^[8] He then took a double win at Cadwell Park, despite not starting on the front row^[9]

Haslam also made two wild card appearance in the World Superbike Championship at Donington Park and Portimão. A competitive showing at Donington ended with disappointing results. In race one he ran with the leaders after a red flag, but eased off after seeing a white flag with a red cross, which means the surface is slippery in WSBK, while in British Superbike, that indicates a safety vehicle is on course (typically a full-course caution period to neutralise the race with the deployment of the safety car). The time he lost here proved costly, as he was taken out a lap later. In race two he crashed out of fourth place with just three laps to go. At Portimão he finished third in race two, with a German flag above him on the podium, implying that the officials expected Max Neukirchner to overhaul him.

World Superbike Championship 2009–Present

WSBK remained his target for 2009,^[10] and he joined the Stiggy Honda team for their first World Superbike campaign,^[11] starting the year strongly with a third place finish at the first round at Phillip Island in race two. The Dutch Grand Prix at Assen was also a very successful weekend as Haslam finished on the podium in both races with a third place in race one and a second place in race two. He finished the season 6th overall, comfortably the top privateer.

Haslam finished the 2010 season as runner-up to Max Biaggi.

Haslam's impressive results for Stiggy led to Alstare Suzuki signing him to partner Sylvain Guintoli for the 2010 season.^[12] He took his first WSBK pole in the 2010 season opener at Phillip Island.^[13] He then went on to win his first World Superbike race in race one, narrowly beating Michel Fabrizio by 0.004 seconds at the line in the closest finish ever recorded in a World Superbike race. Haslam was also in control of race two until 3 turns from the end he was overtaken by the eventual winner Carlos Checa. He took two second places at round 2 in Portugal.^[14] These strong results continued in the early part of the season, before a run of four successive wins for Max Biaggi's Aprilia. This led Haslam to publicly ask Suzuki Japan for more resources, in order to prevent their title challenge from faltering.^[15] Haslam beat Biaggi in both Silverstone races, to trim Biaggi's championship lead to 60 points.^[16] The championship went down to the penultimate round at Imola with Haslam needing to win, in race one both Haslam and Biaggi made mistakes, Biaggi ran straight on at turns 3 and 4 the Villeneuve esses cutting across the track right in front of the competitors and was lucky not to be hit or fall off, he recovered to finish 11th while Haslam was 2nd going into the final lap, coming into rivazza one Haslam tried to go underneath race leader Carlos Checa, Haslam however could not stop the bike and ended up in the gravel and could only manage a 5th place,^[17] in race 2 Biaggi made a much better start and was right at the front from the start, with Haslam. Haslam made a mistake on lap 7 which dropped him back to 5th place, trying to make his way back up the field going through the Villeneuve esses his engine blew up, this was the Suzuki's first mechanical failure of the year.^[18] This handed the title to Max Biaggi who came home 5th, with wild celebrations on the slow down lap.^[19] On the 27 September Haslam was released from his two-year contract with Alstare Suzuki by mutual consent, team manager Francis Batta citing the lack of response to the call for help from the Suzuki factory.^[20]

On 28 September 2010, Haslam signed a two-year contract with the BMW team to ride in the 2011 Superbike World Championship season,^[21] and for the 2013 season he joined Ten Kate Honda Fireblade WSB^[22] operating as Team Pata Honda, with Ulsterman Jonny Rea as team-mate.^[23]

In July 2013 Haslam won the prestigious Suzuka 8-hour endurance race in Japan, partnered-up for the race with Team Pata World Supersport rider Michael van der Mark – debuting at Suzuka – and 2010 winner Takumi Takahashi in the MuSashi HARC Pro Honda team.^[24]

Personal life

Leon has two sisters, Emma and Zoe.^[25] In 2010, he married his long term partner, former glamour model turned TV presenter Olivia Stringer in Sweden,^[26]^[27] who gave birth to their daughter Ava May in December 2011^[28] and Max Peter on 11 August 2013.

Haslam owns the snooker cue that Peter Ebdon used to win the 2002 World Snooker Championship, and has it framed on his wall. He also enjoys playing poker, pool and golf, and supports Manchester United F.C.. His training partners include his wife, and the Formula Renault front-runner Riki Christodoulou. At Mallory Park he also made his debut in the British Rallycross Championship in a Suzuki Swift,^[29] for which he then stated he had plans to run in the series part-time in 2010.

Career statistics

Races by year

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position)

Year	Class	Bike	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	Pos	Pts
1998	125cc	Honda	JPN	MAL	SPA	ITA	FRA	MAD	NED	GBR 17	GER	CZE	IMO	CAT	AUS	ARG			NC	0
1999	125cc	Honda	MAL	JPN	SPA	FRA	ITA	CAT	NED	GBR 19	GER	CZE	IMO	VAL	AUS	RSA	BRA	ARG	NC	0
2000	125cc	Italjet	RSA 22	MAL 19	JPN Ret	SPA 17	FRA DNQ	ITA 22	CAT 10	NED 18	GBR 19	GER Ret	CZE 17	POR Ret	VAL 22	BRA Ret	PAC Ret	AUS 17	27th	6
2001	500cc	Honda	JPN 13	RSA 17	SPA 16	FRA DNS	ITA	CAT WD	NED 13	GBR 17	GER Ret	CZE Ret	POR Ret	VAL 16	PAC 15	AUS 19	MAL 15	BRA 11	19th	13
2002	250cc	Honda	JPN Ret	RSA 15	ESP 19	FRA Ret	ITA 18	CAT 18	NED Ret	GBR 17	GER 13	CZE 17	POR 7	BRA 10	PAC Ret	MAL 17	AUS 18	VAL 17	18th	19

Superbike World Championship

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Make	1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		9		10		11		12		13		14		Pos	Pts
Year	Make	R1	R2	R1	R2	R1	R2	R1	R2	R1	R2	R1	R2	R1	R2	R1	R2	R1	R2	R1	R2	R1	R2	R1	R2	R1	R2	R1	R2	Pos	Pts
2003	Ducati	SPA	SPA	AUS	AUS	JPN	JPN	ITA	ITA	GER	GER	GBR	GBR	SMR	SMR	USA	USA	GBR Ret	GBR 10	NED 6	NED 7	ITA	ITA	FRA Ret	FRA 6					21st	35
2004	Ducati	SPA 5	SPA 9	AUS Ret	AUS 10	SMR 11	SMR 5	ITA 5	ITA 4	GER 7	GER 3	GBR 5	GBR 4	USA 9	USA Ret	EUR Ret	EUR Ret	NED 6	NED 6	ITA 10	ITA 12	FRA 7	FRA 6							8th	169
2008	Honda	QAT	QAT	AUS	AUS	SPA	SPA	NED	NED	ITA	ITA	USA	USA	GER	GER	SMR	SMR	CZE	CZE	GBR	GBR	EUR 8	EUR Ret	ITA	ITA	FRA	FRA	POR 7	POR 3	22nd	33
2009	Honda	AUS 6	AUS 3	QAT 11	QAT 11	SPA 5	SPA 5	NED 3	NED 2	ITA Ret	ITA 7	RSA Ret	RSA 4	USA 10	USA Ret	SMR 12	SMR 8	GBR 4	GBR 2	CZE 7	CZE 12	GER 6	GER 5	ITA 6	ITA 8	FRA 5	FRA 5	POR Ret	POR Ret	6th	241
2010	Suzuki	AUS 1	AUS 2	POR 2	POR 2	SPA 1	SPA 4	NED 11	NED 2	ITA 4	ITA 2	RSA 3	RSA 1	USA 2	USA Ret	SMR 8	SMR 2	CZE 8	CZE 10	GBR 3	GBR 4	GER 6	GER 3	ITA 5	ITA Ret	FRA 2	FRA 10			2nd	376
2011	BMW	AUS 3	AUS 5	EUR 4	EUR 4	NED 12	NED 5	ITA 3	ITA Ret	USA 8	USA 13	SMR Ret	SMR 5	SPA 9	SPA 9	CZE 8	CZE 7	GBR 4	GBR 8	GER 5	GER 9	ITA Ret	ITA 5	FRA 3	FRA 4	POR 9	POR 15			5th	224
2012	BMW	AUS 12	AUS 5	ITA 3	ITA 3	NED Ret	NED 5	ITA C	ITA 2	EUR 2	EUR 15	USA 10	USA 8	SMR 12	SMR 3	SPA 7	SPA 6	CZE 7	CZE 7	GBR 6	GBR 17	RUS 6	RUS Ret	GER 7	GER Ret	POR 19	POR Ret	FRA 5	FRA Ret	8th	200
2013	Honda	AUS 7	AUS 10	SPA 9	SPA 9	NED DNS	NED DNS	ITA	ITA	GBR DNS	GBR DNS	POR Ret	POR DNS	ITA 10	ITA 9	RUS Ret	RUS C	GBR 7	GBR Ret	GER 7	GER 13	TUR 9	TUR 8	USA Ret	USA 11	FRA 8	FRA Ret	SPA Ret	SPA Ret	13th	91

* Season in progress.

British Superbike Championship