Leon Haslam

Leon Lloyd Haslam (born 31 May 1983, in the London Borough of Ealing) is a motorcycle road racer based in Derbyshire, England.

In February 2022, Haslam confirmed he would be racing in British Superbikes for Lee Hardy Racing on a Kawasaki ZX-10RR, whilst the actual sponsor name of the team, VisionTrack (previously a backer of Paul Bird Motorsport), determined later.

Haslam competed in a wild card ride at Assen World Superbikes in April 2022, substituting at short notice for Pedercini Racing.

He was 1995 and 1996's National Youth Motocross champion, 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, also riding in six World Superbikes races with a best finish of sixth at Assen and Magny Cours.

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).

With Renegade switching to Honda machinery and cutting to one rider Haslam moved to BSB with the reformed GSE Racing Squad, now known as Airwaves Ducati.

Haslam finished 4th overall behind only teammate Lavilla and the two HM Plant Hondas of Ryuichi Kiyonari and Michael Rutter.

After the 2004 season on a Ducati in World Superbikes with teammate Noriyuki Haga, between 2005 and 2008 he was a regular front-runner in the British Superbike Championship.

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.

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.

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 and was generally outpaced by younger teammate Cal Crutchlow, and was excluded from race 2 at Oulton Park after a racing incident with Tom Sykes.

Despite several podium finishes his first win did not come until round 8 at Knockhill, when race leader Byrne crashed heavily.

He then took a double win at Cadwell Park, despite not starting on the front row

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.

For 2009 he returned to the Superbike World Championship, riding for Suzuki, BMW, Honda and Aprilia.

Haslam is nicknamed 'Pocket Rocket' and is the son of former road-racer 'Rocket Ron' Haslam.

Haslam was first exposed to motorcycle racing as a baby, often travelling with his parents to his dad, Ron Haslam's, races.

Between the 2016 and 2018 seasons, he was contracted to race in the British Superbike Championship aboard a Kawasaki ZX-10R.

He won the 2018 British championship at the final event held at Brands Hatch in late October, having previously signed to join the Kawasaki Superbike factory team in World Championship from 2019 as team-mate to Jonathan Rea.

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.

After the 2019 World Superbike season with the factory Kawasaki team, for 2020 and 2021 he was contracted to ride the then-new Honda CBR1000RR-R in the World Superbike Championship, with the team being run for the first time under full HRC control.