Thursday, May 12 2011
The opening day of the 3rd world superbike round got underway at Monza in Italy today. Aprilia rider Leon Camier finished the day 10th fastest despite technical problems and a mistake in the afternoon session limiting his time on track.
Following a productive test the previous week in Mugello, Leon was quickly on the pace during First Free Practice in the morning. His best time of 1:44.221, set on worn tyres, placed him 6th fastest.
Seven minutes into the afternoon’s 60 minute session, Leon was forced to return to the garage with a technical problem. Heading back on track on his second bike, Leon immediately went into the top 10, improving further to go 6th with a lap of 1:43.730. Then just after the halfway mark, Leon lost the front at the fast final turn. Although unhurt and very little damage was sustained to his race bike, Leon was unable to return to the track and improve on his lap times, eventually slipping to 10th.
Despite this series of set-backs, the 23 year old is confident that there is more to come if no more bad luck hits.
“Not a completely bad result considering the difficult day we’ve had. A few technical issues and then a small mistake by me this afternoon has meant we’ve not managed to do that many laps, so to end top 10 is promising. We’ve not yet been able to see what we can do and put our progress from the last test into work, so hopefully tomorrow will be trouble free and we can get on with the job!”
Leon returns to the track on Saturday for Qualifying Practice at 1045hrs (local time).
Keep visiting www.leon-camier.net for behind the scenes pictures and video clips on LCTV.
