Leon Camier, only 24 hours before his excellent end to Friday in Australia, said that it may be some time before he and his bike could approach the levels displayed by WorldSBK riders like Rea and Bautista.
But come the end of FP2 he was in sixth place overall on his Moriwaki Honda. And really quite close to the best.
His official CBR100RR took him to a lap-time only 0.465 seconds from the leading pace of Alvaro Bautista’s red rev rocket of a Ducati.
“I am pretty surprised myself,” laughed Camier. “It has just been little details to be honest, with the electronics; chassis made more of the difference. But it is just a few more details on the chassis that have made more of a difference.
"Every session we just keeps chipping away and there is still a lot to improve on. We need to understand how we are for race distance, for one thing. And you know what it is like round here, you can be on or really off. I think there is a fair bit to be improved as well.”
Camier also got a sniff of the new Ducati’s scent, it appears. “I see Bautista out on track as well and, ohhhh, it is a very different way of going about this track. It is going to be interesting to see how he gets on in the race because I think it is not going to be quite as easy as it looks from the outside.”
Tyres, the perennial PI issue, was next up for Camier’s analysis of how he would be over 22 laps.
“We did a race run on a tyre this morning, with ins and outs, but we did race distance on it.” said Camier. “He last few laps were pretty difficult and I was not sure what was going on underneath me. I thought maybe it was pretty bad but to look at, it was fine.
"There were no issues, it is just that the tyre had taken a big drop. Since then we have been working on it a little bit with chassis, and with electronics. I think we will make quite a bit of difference with electronics on that.”
Comparing this Friday with all the Friday’s from last year, Camier said, “The team for sure have got a different way of working. Which is quite good. I see how they study and go about things is really quite good. Quite impressive and the changes have all been in a good direction.
"This, for me, means that the Honda HRC side is working really well. But we have to just keep chipping away and keep coming up with these problems and then try to fix them. It is all so new. Sixth overall looks OK but it is going to be a lot more work to do, then where we are at the moment. I feel like I am riding really well and the feedback is quite clear, what I need from he bike is quite clear. So far so good, the guys are giving me what I need.”
