Leon Camier believes he has the capability to move forward from his seventh place grid position in tomorrow’s opening World Superbike races of the year. The Briton admitted he was underwhelmed with the result in Superpole after going so well in testing last week but expects the Suzuki GSX-R1000 to be stronger over a race distance.
“I’m not really bowled over with the result in qualifying, but I think our race-pace is a little bit better than seventh. It’s going to be a really hard race tomorrow though, no matter what, because there are a lot of people that can do very good race times. We need to improve in the final sector and get dragged down the straight by the fastest bikes, if we can do that the job will be a little easier. I’ll be hoping to get a strong start tomorrow, the third row means that a good start is even more crucial, so to have a decent race I need to get off the line well, be quite clever on the tactics and hopefully have the pace at the end of the race to do well.”
FIXI Crescent Suzuki teammate Jules Cluzel saw his frustrating start to World Superbikes continue, missing out on Superpole altogether. The Frenchman suffered from a recurring engine problem which left him stranded in seventeenth and unprepared for tomorrow’s races as well.
“It has been a strange day because I expected to improve this morning, but after just one fast lap, I had to come in because I had a problem with my engine. This meant no qualifying for me and no chance to improve any more. This afternoon I was looking to do something good in free practice because I wasn’t in the Superpole, but after one lap there was a strange sound from the engine and I had to come back in and the guys needed to open it up to find out what was the problem. We lost a lot of time, but I was able to do two quick laps at the end and my time was better than yesterday. In the three full laps today I improved on every one, so I think my pace was quite good. I haven’t tried a long run yet and I have never been able to do a really fast lap, so I am a little bit frustrated. Tomorrow is the most important day of the weekend and before I came here the main thing was to learn, but tomorrow I still need to discover more because I am a rookie and I have lost a lot of time, so I will have to make up for it on Sunday!”
