Last season could hardly have been worse for the Red Bull Honda WorldSBK team, with everything from late arrival of the new model through the impossible personal grief of losing Nicky Hayden in a cycling accident, all framed by disappointing results from almost first to last.

But a new-look squad, with Ten Kate Team Manager Kervin Bos at the helm, was right in the mix in testing at Jerez, with Leon Camier at the controls of their lead CBR. Immediately competitive in the group behind the Ducatis and Kawasakis, Camier was in the top four after resorting to qualifying tyres. Three qualifying tyres in all…

Even with Q tyres helping Camier’s final lap time reach 1’39.608, the lift in overall performance was unmistakeable, which was a relief for the Kent rider after his second Jerez test since signing with Honda at the end of last season. “The big, scary thing for me was has the bike got potential or not,” he told bikesportnews.com after day two in Spain. “And it has, obviously. It is working better than I thought it would be at this point. To be honest it is not that much different to last year. A little bit of improvement in engine and some chassis stuff, but fundamentally it is pretty similar to last year.”

Still with a small glitch or two in the throttle response in some parts of the track, Camier used the 2017 Cosworth electronics system as the new Magneti Marelli system is still not quite ready. “Our pace was alright and the electronics were working good. We tried a couple of strategies on it and a other things, and it went better and better.”

Even more important for Camier, as he will have new electronics at the next test anyway, was seeing how far he could push the chassis side. “I am really just trying to understand the chassis more and more, what I need to go faster. Then it is understanding the balance for a race, which is going to be very difficult. That is still something I am working on now.

“We put three Q tyres in just trying to figure it out because it is very different and I just need to understand what I need to go faster. But, to be fair, we did not put a good bike setting in with a race tyre and then went for a lap time. So I think there is a bit more left in the race tyre, to be honest.”

He may get to find out more about that in Portimao in a few days’ time. “In Portugal I want to find out a bit more about race pace, and a different track will bring up some new problems,” said Leon. “We will keep battling through them and keep learning the bike as much as we can, and how to balance it over race distance. So there is still a fair bit to understand.”