The
first race of the 2019 Superbike World Championship took place this
afternoon at the Phillip Island circuit in Australia. Having qualified
tenth in the morning’s Superpole, rider Leon Camier started the race
from the fourth row of the grid, with the aim of making up ground and
demonstrating the kind of pace that had allowed him to finish the free
practice sessions very close to the top five. Unfortunately,
on lap nine of the twenty-two lap race, and having set his fastest lap
of 1’31.782 that saw him pass Cortese, Laverty and Davies and move up to
ninth place, the Brit suffered a crash at turn 2. The incident
prevented him from improving further and put a premature end to his
race. On his return to the Superbike category, Ryuichi Kiyonari qualified in 17th and crossed the line sixteenth in Race 1, just missing out on the points zone.
Ryuichi Kiyonari 23 16th
“The positive
thing is that we finished the race, the not so positive is our position
of course. I was really aiming to finish inside the points zone today.
Anyway, we have gained experience and have a lot of data that we can use
in order to try and improve tomorrow. After today’s race, I better
understand how to manage the tyres, especially towards the end because
today I struggled a lot there and couldn’t defend my position in the
final stages of the race.”
Leon Camier 2 DNF
“The crash
honestly is hard to understand because I didn’t do anything different
there, and I just lost the front through turn 2. It’s frustrating as I
was feeling really good on the bike. I felt it was working even better
than I expected it to in the race, and I definitely had the pace of the
guys I was running with. I had just passed Chaz (Davies) and was
catching Melandri and Van Der Mark, and my pace was pretty decent.
Starting from tenth on the grid makes it more difficult of course, and
it wasn’t easy to pass Chaz, but I think that ultimately I could have
been in the group with Marco (Melandri). I don’t know how the tyre would
have lasted, but I don’t think it would have been too bad. Anyway, now
we need to concentrate on tomorrow.”
