Britain’s Leon Camier ended today’s Silverstone MotoGP qualifying session in 18th place but feels frustrated as he believes he can go a chunk faster and knows he is playing catch-up after effectively losing the opening session.

The former British Superbike Champion found almost a second between overnight but still had to make significant changes to his riding style to make the Drive M7 Honda carry the corner speed he needs to get on terms with Scott Redding.

“In free practice we made a really big change and went three-quarters of a second faster, then made a smaller change in qualifying two and went another half second faster but on the first lap I had people in the way, so I think I can go a lot quicker," said Camier, speaking to bikesportnews.com.

“The bike is in a place now where I feel like I can push. We didn’t manage to get the situation together. After losing FP1, I feel like we are just playing catch up and I really needed that last lap.

“I was trying to get everyone out of the way and get some clear laps by myself. Before the crash, I only let off for about three seconds but it was enough and it just folded. It was a cold tyre - looking on the data, there is less lean angle, I was slower. I just feel frustrated as we can be quicker than we are.

“We went a lot harder on the front, lower on the rear so now we need to come up with a good race setting as this is good with lots of grip but I don’t think there is going to be a lot of grip, so we need to find a good balance for the race.”

Camier has been studying what Redding does with the rear brake to calm the RCV1000R down over Silverstone’s bumps and says that jamming the back brake on is far from natural, it is something he has to learn to do.

“Where Scott (Redding) is strong is on the bumps. Following him and looking at photos, he uses the rear brake a lot at that point in the turn which stops a lot of the problems. I can do it in lefts but not so much in rights. We will change the rear brake setup tomorrow to help with that.

“There are some sectors where I am not that far behind him so I know I can go a chunk quicker. It’s frustrating, I don’t feel like I am riding like I can, it’s all a bit nervous. I need more laps to keep creeping forward. We are playing catch-up because we lost the first session. We are a bit behind, a session short.”