Leon Camier feels he has a bike capable of winning World Superbike races this season, but says an improvement from the engine of his Suzuki GSX-R1000 will be required in order to fulfil its potential.

Having qualified a strong sixth on his debut for Crescent Fixi Suzuki, Camier suffered a disappointing race day when he was nudged off the track by Davide Giugliano in race one, which dropped him from eighth to an eventual 17th position, before a poor start in race two prevented him from finishing higher than 12th.

Nonetheless, despite the unfavourable results, Camier was pleased with his team and the bike and even went as far to suggest it has the potential to be a victory contender in 2012.

However, with Camier coming through the speed traps 15kph down on the Aprilia, the British rider has urged technical partners Yoshimura to extricate more power from the engine in time for Imola.

“I wanted better results but we’ve gathered masses of information in the team’s first-ever WSBK race and I’m positive that we’ll see a big improvement in Imola,” he said. “I can’t tell you how happy I am with the GSX-R’s chassis – for me it has the potential to win races. The bike brakes really well, is stable in mid-corner; and I’m perfectly happy with its character. If we can get a bit more power, we’ll be contenders for sure.

“In race one, I got pushed off the track by Giugliano and lost ground. I started chasing back to catch up, but as the race went on the tyre wore out completely and I couldn’t push any harder.

“In the second race, I got hemmed-in going into turn one, lost ground and was 14th at the end of lap one. I was able to pass a lot of people on the brakes, but lost out on acceleration and top speed and again the way I had to ride to compensate destroyed the tyre at the end. It was a tough day but the potential is huge.”