Gordon Ritchie | January 25, 2018
Leon Camier Shows Honda’s True WorldSBK Potential—The 2017 season could hardly have been worse for the Red Bull Honda team, with everything from the late arrival of the new model through the impossible personal grief of losing Nicky Hayden in a cycling accident, all framed by disappointing results from almost first to last.
Camier pushed hard across the Jerez WorldSBK test to show the Honda really does have the speed to be competitive.
But a new look Red Bull Honda WorldSBK team, with Ten Kate Team Manager Kervin Bos at its head, was right in the mix in testing at Jerez, with Leon Camier at the controls of their lead CBR. Immediately competitive in the group behind the Ducatis and Kawasakis, Camier was right in the top four after resorting to qualifying tires. Three qualifying tires in all…
Even with Q tires helping Camier’s final lap time reach 1:39.608 in third place, the lift in overall performance was unmistakable, which was a relief for Camier after his second Jerez test since signing with Honda at the end of last season.
“The big scary thing for me was if the bike had the potential or not,” he said after day two in Spain. “And it has, obviously. It is working better than I thought it would be at this point. To be honest it is not that much different to last year. A little bit of improvement in the engine and some chassis stuff, but fundamentally it is pretty similar to last year.”
Still with a small glitch or two in the throttle response in some parts of the track, Camier used the 2017 Cosworth electronics system as the new Magneti Marelli system is still not quite ready.
“Our pace was alright and the electronics were working good. We tried a couple of strategies on it and other things, and it went better and better.”
Still work to do
Even more important for Camier, as he will have new electronics at the next test anyway, was seeing how far he could push the chassis side.
“I am really just trying to understand the chassis more and more, what I need to go faster. Then it is understanding the balance for a race, which is going to be very difficult. That is still something I am working on now. We put three Q tires in just trying to figure it out because it is very different and I just need to understand what I need to go faster. But, to be fair, we did not put a good bike setting in with a race tire and then went for a lap time. So, I think there is a bit more left in the race tire, to be honest.”
He may get to find out more about that in Portugal in a few days’ time for the next WorldSBK test. “In Portugal, I want to find out a bit more about race pace and a different track will bring up some new problems,” said Leon. “We will keep battling through them and keep learning the bike as much as we can, and how to balance that over race distance. There is still a fair bit to understand.”
