Leon Camier continued his good run of form in the pre-season WSB tests by topping the timesheets on the first day at Phillip Island.
The Ashford rider made consistent progression today around the 4,445m Australian circuit, before setting a fastest time of 1’31.243, more than half-a-second quicker than Max Biaggi’s lap record.
Camier completed 44 laps in the sweltering Phillip Island heat as air temperatures reached 35°C during the afternoon session. Camier had used this morning as a shakedown test to assess his newly-built Suzuki GSX-R1000 after the huge crash in last week’s tests and, following a few adjustments by his crew during the lunch period, he put the Yoshimura-powered machine to good use to storm his way to the top of the charts.
Speaking after the first day of official testing, Camier was pleased with how things were shaping up for him ahead of the new season:
“We needed to change some stuff after the bike had been re-built, so this morning was there no big hurry to push from the start. We changed the bike a bit in the lunch-break, because unfortunately it didn’t quite feel the same as it did before I smashed it up last week!”
“The feeling came back and we also had to change quite a bit because of the heat, I did the same lap-time in the cooler conditions last week as I did in the heat today, so I think we did a pretty good job. It’s very close at the top, so it doesn’t really count for anything, because the race will be difficult and the other guys have got some time to perfect what they’ve got. We are in quite good shape at the moment, but we know there is still a lot to do for the rest of this week.”
FIXI Crescent Suzuki has one more day of pre-season testing tomorrow as it makes its final preparations in readiness for the first races of the season this Sunday.
Phillip Island – Official Test Classification: 1. Leon Camier (FIXI Crescent Suzuki) 1’31.243: 2. Leon Haslam (Honda) 1’31.396: 3. Michel Fabrizio (Aprilia) 1’31.401: 4. Eugene Laverty (Aprilia) 1’31.452: 5. Marco Melandri (BMW) 1’31.485. 14. Jules Cluzel (FIXI Crescent Suzuki) 1’32.817.