Leon Camier raced to an impressive ninth place in the first race of Sunday’s eighth round of the World Superbike Championship in Spain.

Camier started from 14th on the grid and got off to a great start to make his way to 10th by the end of the first lap. He was involved in a race-long battle with several other riders that saw the group of them swapping positions as the race progressed.

Camier was in 11th as the final lap started, but a two-rider collision in-front of the FIXI Crescent rider on the Yoshimura-powered Suzuki, saw him benefit and bring his machine home for a tough – but deserved – ninth place. In race two Camier again got a good start and was up into 10th place early on. Unfortunately a technical issue with his bike forced him to enter the pits and retire at the end of lap 17.

The Ashford rider felt he did well in some parts of the race, but less well in others:

“The funny thing is that I felt that I was riding really well today. I was all over most of the other riders in the turns and on the brakes, but was losing out on acceleration out of the slow corners. On the back straight, I was losing somewhere between three and five tenths-of-a-second and that’s hard to make up in this level of competition.

“The wind was quite strong today and it affected our braking points and it was easy to overshoot the corners – especially the slow hairpin at the end of the back straight. I am really happy with the chassis of my FIXI Crescent Suzuki and I feel that the electronics have improved quite a bit recently. If we can improve the acceleration out of the turns and get a bit more power, I think that our bike is capable of competing with the best.”
Today’s races were held in much cooler conditions than have been experienced this weekend. Race one saw track temperatures almost 30° lower than on previous days, with it warming up slightly for the second event. Max Biaggi on an Aprilia took victory in race one to extend his World Championship lead, with Marco Melandri emerging victorious on a BMW in race two.

Camier will now return to the UK, before it heads off across Europe for the ninth round of the season, which is due to be held at Brno in the Czech Republic on Sunday 22nd July.