Airwaves Yamaha's Leon Camier made a proper nuisance of himself during this morning's first World Superbike free practice, pushing his Yamaha World Superbike counterpart Ben Spies all the way.
Spies finished the hour-long session fastest with a lap of 1'30.962 and was the only man inside the 1'30s bracket, but Camier was only two-tenths of a second slower with Stiggy Honda's Leon Haslam in third, hald a tenth behind his former BSB competitor.
Xerox Ducati's Michel Fabrizio was fourth quickest, just over half a second off Spies with Gregorio Lavilla fifth, team-mate Jakub Smrz sixth, a resurgent John Hopkins seventh and Tom Sykes eighth, a second in arrears.
Haslam was the first rider to show his intentions with a 1'32.305 lap which put him at the top of the timesheets but Sterilgarda Ducati's Shane Byrne was hard on his heels.
Camier came out with almost ten minutes of the session gone and immediately went third with a 1'32.426 and then hit the top of the timesheets one lap later with a 1'32.047 has Haslam took second, lapping just over a tenth slower.
After another lap, Camier got his head down again and broke into the 1'31 bracket with a 1'31.732 with 48 minutes of the session remaining as Ten Kate Honda's Jonathan Rea crashed but re-joined.
It took Spies 20 minutes to get anywhere near Camier's time as Byrne and Sykes swapped the number two slot between them. The Huddersfield youngster lapped at 1'31.954 which was good enough for second until he was deposed by Fabrizio.
Spies went fastest with 20 minutes left but Haslam came back at him ten minutes later, going quickest on a 1'31.650 but the American wasn't to be denied and posted a 1'30.962 as Camier lapped at 31.180.
Sykes ended the session in eighth, one place in front of Byrne who, in turn was one place ahead of Camier's team-mate James Ellison who is just over a second off the pace. Rea is 13th after his crash exiting the Melbourne Loop with MSS Colchester Kawasaki's Simon Andrews, who is riding his kit bike this weekend, in 22nd.
