MV Agusta’s Leon Camier has admitted that changing to slicks during today’s 21-lap race one at Magny-Cours likely would have made little impact on his finishing position, after the British rider slipped from the lead to seventh having stayed out on wet tyres.
Camier enjoyed a strong qualifying in the wet conditions, taking his MV to fifth on the grid. Despite this, he wasn’t totally content with his bike’s set-up, so the team made several changes before the race. The steps taken by MV turned out to be hugely positive, and Camier was quick from the off. Starting on the wet tyres, the Briton was able to run with the squabbling Kawasaki and Honda duos and by lap three found himself into third position.
Once clear of the Nicky Hayden and Michael van der Mark, Camier demolished the gap to Jonathan Rea ahead and made a move for second at Turn 8 on lap eight. Tom Sykes could do nothing stop his countryman coming through at Turn 5 a lap later and Camier was now into the lead.
As the track improved with each passing lap, more and more riders pitted to ditch their wet tyres. Camier and his team had originally devised to come in when the team felt it was time to crossover, but they soon determined that the time lost pitting would cost them the podium and they’d re-join fighting for the middle positions of the top 10.
So they took a gamble and stayed out on the wets, a decision which made sense as Camier had absolutely nothing to lose. Unfortunately, he could quite look after his tyres as well Lorenzo Savadori behind, the Ioda rider also staying out on wet rubber. Savadori overtook Camier on lap 14, the British rider steadily slipping back to seventh over the course of the final few laps.
Though missing out on the rostrum, Camier was still left feeling happy at his pace in the wet conditions and found his time at the head of the pack rather ‘exciting’.
“It’s a pretty exciting thing to lead the race especially passing the Kawasakis,” he said. “We made a change for the race after warm up then in qualifying it was ok but it felt like I was already on the limit at every corner so we made some changes for the race and the setting was really good. I’m really happy about this.
“The electronics were working really good but in the race I felt as the track was drying and the tires were getting hotter and more destroyed,” explained the Brit. Pretty much Savadori was quicker on wet tyres but I think this is something we can work on in mixed conditions. All in all we were really strong in the wet conditions and I’m happy about this. I don’t think if I had come in to change to slicks it would have made much of a difference to how our end results were.”
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