On the opening day of the Thai WorldSBK round at Chang International Circuit, Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team riders Leon Camier and Jake Gagne got off to a solid start in what has a hotly contested day of action.

On a day where the top-ten quickest riders were separated by only half a second after three sessions, both Camier and Gagne showed competitive pace on the CBR1000RR Fireblade SP2. From the outset in the morning Free Practice 1 session, Camier set a frantic pace and was near the top of the leaderboard in all the sessions and eventually finished in P6 overall with a best time of 1’33.435; a mere two-tenths of a second off the quickest time of the day.

On the #45 CBR1000RR Fireblade SP2, Jake Gagne continued to impress as the American rookie quickly got up to speed on his first visit to the Thai circuit.  Gagne ended the day fourteenth quickest, his best lap time of 1’34.500 coming in Free Practice 2 and left him just 1.1 seconds off the pace.

Leon Camier 2

It was a good start from the first session today, the lap time came quite easily from the beginning so I felt competitive on the bike right away. My pace was good throughout all the sessions, but there's still a few things we want to try tomorrow as I need to improve my race pace a little bit to take the fight to the top guys. We took another step today so I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

Jake Gagne 45

It was a good first day for me in Thailand on a track I've never ridden before. The circuit is easier to learn than some others, so I felt I got up to speed quickly. I made some good progress from the first to the second session and improved my lap time, but in the last session we made some changes which didn't work for me so I couldn't improve in FP3. I still learned a lot today and think I can get closer to the top ten tomorrow in qualifying and the race.

Kervin Bos - Team Manager

For our first day here in Thailand I'm quite happy how things went for Leon and Jake. On Leon's side he was quick straight away and was able to improve in every session and we were able to try quite a few things on the chassis side today to find a good setting for qualifying and the race. For Jake, for his first time at the circuit he made a good step from the first to the second session, but was unable to improve in FP3 but overall he had a good first day and for sure will improve again tomorrow. The conditions will be a bit warmer tomorrow but we're well prepared to fight for a good result.