Leon Haslam's difficult weekend continued on Sunday for Suzuki Alstare in Brno. Both he and his French team-mate Sylvain Guintoli hoped that solutions had been found to the problems in practice and qualifying, but while Sylvain took a superb fourth in race 1 and a seventh in race two, Leon's struggles continued. It was never going to be easy for Leon, starting from the fourth row of the grid, but lack of grip in both races meant that he could only finish eighth in race one and tenth in race two. Both riders were using the new Pirelli tyres, which seem to be causing difficulties setting up the bike. Haslam is now a full 68 points off the pace of the leader Max Biaggi, with the Italian's lead increasing race after race.


"It's hard to say how disappointed and frustrated I am today. If I thought that the problems were my fault, I'd put my hand up straightaway. We first experienced grip problems with the new tyres in Misano. Whatever we tried just didn't seem to work. We used the new tyres in race one there and I had a poor result, so we changed to the older tyres for race two, went back to our base set-up and I finished second! We worked with the new tyres all weekend and we have struggled all weekend. We did manage to improve the bike a bit for today, but the engine is pushing in almost everywhere and the bike is not easy to ride. The new tyres have got more grip, but getting the bike to work with them is another thing. There are a few people who have got them to work, but the majority of us are struggling."

"The tyre in race two didn't work at all and I almost couldn't finish the race - it was that bad! I felt that I was going to be highsided all the time and I don't think I've been passed by that many people all year! Cal (Crutchlow) obviously had a similar tyre to mine and he felt it was bad enough to pit and change it for another one. Although his second tyre was the same, it behaved completely differently and he was able to lap over a second lap quicker straightaway!

"I'm trying to think what positives we can take from this weekend and my comment is... none. The only thing I do know is that we will not be using these new tyres again. We'll go back to the older tyres, a base set-up we know and I am convinced that I'll be able to lap a lot faster and be challenging for the podium again."