Leon Camier begins his second season in WorldSBK as team manager rather than rider in 2022 for HRC.

Fielding two riders moving across from the MotoGP Championship, Iker Lecuona from the premier class and Xavi Vierge from Moto2, Honda’s new factory line up breathes youthful exuberance, determination and hunger, both in terms of results and the quest for knowledge. It’s an outlook Camier says drove the decision to recruit the pair.

“The reason for choosing Iker and Xavi was purely on performance and their potential for the future,” the former Superbike rider confirmed. “Just purely on their speed and that we believe in them to make a good job.

“Obviously it's a big change [after two years racing the Fireblade in the experienced hands of Leon Haslam and Alvaro Bautista]. We understand that both Xavi and Iker don't have experience in this championship and are new to everything, to the tyres, to the bike in general, so they have no reference of the bike before. We feel that with a fresh outlook on things, that they’re young, they're easy to adapt, they can bring a bit of a fresh perspective to the situation. We think with the immediate speed they've shown, we're really happy and we can expect some good improvement this year.

“From a performance point of view, in the first test I was super impressed with both riders to be honest. Just the speed straightaway was really impressive. Not only that, considering how young they are and the difference in experience, compared to the riders we had before, their feedback was also very impressive. So this is something for us which is really important. Moving forward, developing a new project, this is something that's very sought after. They have to have the speed, for one, and they have to be able to give correct feedback for the development of the bike and this is something that I was super impressed with.

“Of course, before we started the project we tried to do as much homework on both the riders as we can but until you get to the first test and they sit on the bike, until they ride it, you never quite know how it's gonna go but first impressions were really, really good. We are very happy.

"We know that it will take time of course, there's many things to learn in this championship, new bike, new package, new tyres, new situations, new conditions, new circuits. There's a lot to learn for them and we understand this so we're not expecting for them to be up to speed straightaway. This is an investment for the future and something we're looking to keep progressing.

“We believe in the potential a lot. Obviously, as I said before, they need some experience in this championship and experience with the other riders around them, and with some races under their belt they will soon understand where we are. It's not an easy transition from the championships they've been through but we want to keep progressing the bike, and with two young riders, we feel that we can try to build something around them and keep progressing. Our thought is that they can adapt to the bike easier than an older rider that's trying to adapt the bike to exactly what they want. So it's a combination of bike and rider melting together.”

While Lecuona and Vierge are new to the Superbike category, Camier has a wealth of experience having raced full time in WorldSBK for a decade. With 223 races and nine podiums to his name across five manufacturers - with an additional brief but painful testing foray with Ducati ahead of the 2020 season - the 35-year-old is certainly on hand to answer any questions the rookies may have.

“I would say one of the biggest benefits coming from a rider is that I've been in many different teams, many different situations and I like to think that gives me an experience that is quite difficult to get otherwise,” Camier said of his change in role. “You've come from satellite teams, factory teams, you see the strong points of everything and you understand how and what the team needs to be the strongest that it can possibly be. Of course, coming from a rider, there's a lot of things that are new, that I need to learn and I've learned a lot last year.

"Honda and HRC have a very specific way of working and, of course I had experience with them before, but this is something that I have to sort of fall into line with. It's not like you can go in and change absolutely everything, but at the same time using my experience, they trust in me a lot to try and adapt the places where I think we can improve.

“We have a lot of support from Japan and this is something that's very, very important to progressing as a team and also progressing the bike and technical aspects of the team as well. This is something that has gone very well. I think that we still have room to improve and we will continue to improve for sure but this is something that I'm really enjoying from this role.

“We've learned a lot from the past couple of years,” he continued on the continuing evolution of the HRC squad. “The reason for the change of suppliers is that we feel there is room to improve. The rest of the field is on Öhlins [suspension] apart from Kawasaki and we feel that with Showa they're doing a lot of work behind the scenes to try and improve their product. Obviously it's won the last six world championships until last year so the quality of Showa is unquestionable and for us, we feel there's room for improvement basically. So this is the idea behind these changes. Same with Nissin [brakes], we feel that they're having a big push behind the scenes and this is something that we want to be involved in. We think that already the starting point is very good. Obviously we've tested everything, back-to-backed it and we feel that the starting point is very, very good otherwise we wouldn't have made the change, and for the future, we feel that the potential is more.”

With Honda still very much in development mode with the CBR1000RR-R Fireblade, the notion of concessions for new teams and manufacturers, as seen in MotoGP over recent years, has been touted for the production championship. It’s a revision Camier would welcome.

“It's very hard to make good progress in this championship with very constricted rules,” he confirmed. “Allowing new manufacturers, new teams into the championship and being given a little bit more freedom to test I think would be important. Would be really beneficial.

“Of course we would like as much testing as possible, reality is that you cannot test every day of the week. If we did have open testing it would not be just for the sake of riding, it would be when we have specific parts to test, and obviously a lot of it would be based around what Japan could make in regards to new parts. So it's not that we just go to the track to roll around, there has to be some specifics and some goal to the test. But for sure we would like more testing.”

And the question everyone wonders with a recent rider in charge of a team, will we ever see him back aboard the Fireblade for a wildcard appearance?

“I’m far too slow nowadays,” he laughed. “No, my motivation will be to help both Xavi and Iker to try and win and to try and win the championship. That'll be the only winning I get to do from now on.”