Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team riders Leon Camier and Jake Gagne made a measured start to proceedings at Donington Park, the pair finishing in thirteenth and nineteenth places respectively on combined times in Friday practice at the British round of the WorldSBK championship.

Heavy rain and strong winds lashed the Donington Park circuit throughout the day creating challenging conditions, particularly for the opening Free Practice 1 session, before the rain abated allowing dry running with slick tyres in the final session of the day, Free Practice 3.

In the two wet sessions today Camier consistently ran in the top five despite still not having fully recovered from injury, while Gagne also got up to speed in the tricky conditions on the CBR1000RR Fireblade SP2.

However, the dry track surface in Free Practice 3 brought with it an increase in competitiveness within the 25-rider field, with less than a second separating P3 to P13 as the chequered flag was waved. Camier ultimately finished the day thirteenth fastest with a best time of 1’29.417 to be just 1.414 seconds off the top of the timesheets, while Gagne was a further nine tenths adrift – his best time of 1’30.377 seeing him end the day in P19.

Courtesy of their Free Practice results today, both Camier and Gagne will qualify through Superpole 1 at 1045 local time (GMT +1) tomorrow, with Race 1 scheduled to commence at 1315.

Leon Camier 2

It was good to get some track time today in both wet and dry conditions, we were able to make use of the time to continue refining our electronic and chassis settings on the Fireblade. The wet conditions were easier on my body which meant I could run towards the top of the times, but in the dry due to my physical condition I'm still missing that last little bit to make me as competitive as I'd like. Overall, I'm feeling much better than I was at Imola and was able to do quite a few laps today, however we're still taking it session by session so we'll see how we get on tomorrow.

Jake Gagne 45

The wet weather in FP1 and FP2 this morning was good to get me into the flow around this circuit and we found a nice setting with the bike so if we get more rain over the weekend we're in a good place. This afternoon we had a quick forty minute run in the dry which was my first opportunity to try the track on the Fireblade in the dry and through the session I could learn a lot, although it was a bit tricky with some wet spots offline. All in all it was a productive day and if it's wet or dry we have a good direction to go with on the bike so I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

Kervin Bos - Team Manager

It was a challenging first day today with the changeable weather conditions, we had a lot of sun yesterday but today the wind and rain arrived. The rain at least made it easier for Leon to ease into the weekend with less physical stress on his body and his times were very competitive in the wet. However, we could see in the dry final session that he couldn't push as hard as he would've liked, but he has come on quite well from Imola and the goal is still to race, but as before we will continue to monitor his condition. Jake make good use of his time today and got a positive feeling in both the wet and dry conditions and he and his crew have ideas on where he can improve tomorrow. So overall it was a steady start for the team at Donington, but we have a good direction to head in ahead of Race 1 tomorrow.