MV Agusta’s Leon Camier was pleasantly surprised by both his one-lap and race pace at the Phillip Island WorldSBK but is still a little concerned about tyre life.

Due to a regulation change, Camier now cannot use split throttle bodies and the resulting electronics changes have meant tyre life is affected but the former BSB champ believes that if they can manage it in Australia, they can manage it anywhere.

“I feel good to be honest. We didn’t expect to be quite so close to the front. I think there are still some areas we can improve on, but in general we are sort of getting the most out of the package so all in all we are really happy,” said Camier, who finished 0.748s behind fastest man Jonathan Rea.

“Hopefully we can make some small changes to the electronics, and a little bit the chassis for the race weekend but I think we’ve done some good work over the test, and the laps are sort of showing that.

“The things we have to focus on now is the race pace; that was the problem with the throttle bodies. It was chewing tyres up so fingers crossed we can keep making improvements with the tyre life. This is probably one of the worst tracks for us, so if we do good here then hopefully it means we have cured the problem.”