BMW Italia’s Leon Camier demolished the World Superbike Evo field in today’s opening race, finishing some 15 seconds ahead of Kawasaki's David Salom after 19 laps at Imola.

But the former British Superbike Champion said gusts of wind made his job more difficult and forced him into more mistakes than he would have liked - an opinion shared by race winner Jonathan Rea.

“It was a good race but the wind made it difficult and I made a load of mistakes,” said Camier, speaking to bikesportnews.com at Imola.

Despite this, Camier was able to consistently lap half to a full second quicker than Salom and was only nine seconds behind Leon Haslam on the full Pata Honda Superbike at the chequered flag. Althea Ducati's Nico Canepa had been in close attendance but a trip into the gravel at Rivazza forced him to retire.