Camier signs off looking forward to 2013
Leon Camier, by his own admission, had a peculiar 2012 season in SBK racing on his FIXI Crescent Suzuki. A relative lack of push and sheer top speed held back his results in the earlier part of the year but Camier eventually took his sweet-handling GSX-R to a podium in Germany and his race pace was often as fast as the podium finishers at other races.
Said Leon, in his regular blog for Suzuki, "The season as a whole has been a bit of a strange one, but we've ended on a very positive note and that's good for me and the whole team. It was no secret that we were struggling a bit to match the performance in the early rounds of the other guys out there, but I knew the GSX-R had potential, so I never gave up and kept riding at my absolute maximum. My race pace was always up there with the best and we showed that going into the turns I was always able to catch other riders, because the GSX-R has a great chassis, but they would pull away from me on the straights and I'd have to do it all over again. Sometimes I was fighting with guys that I knew I could beat, but the level of competition is so high in World Superbikes that it's important to be on the first two rows of the grid if you want to get good results or you end up having to fight your way through the pack."
He continued, "The team worked hard all year to make the bike better and the fruits of their labour started to show around about Brno time and the progress has continued since then. It was so good to be able to fight for a top-three place and we showed how much we'd improved by a superb podium at the Nürburgring. There was almost another one in Portimao, when I felt I had the better of Max Biaggi in the closing stages, but a technical problem forced me out - but at least I was fighting with him, instead of looking at him from a distance!"
Now with no more testing left to do before the turn of the year Camier is going to concentrate on fixing a niggling arm injury. Nothing major he said, but now is the time to get it done.
Leon had other offers for 2013 but still opted to stay with Suzuki. As he said after the recent Aragon tests, in which he lapped as fast on the new 17-inch tyres as he did on the previous 16.5 Pirellis, he sees a brighter season ahead for his whole team. "I see the potential in this even though this is an older bike, but electronics and other things have improved a lot this year. We just need a bit of consistency, me and the team, so I am looking forward to next year."
