Camier ‘impressed with HRC WorldSBK performance and potential for the future’

Leon Camier begins his second season in WorldSBK as team manager rather than rider in 2022 for HRC.

Fielding two riders moving across from the MotoGP Championship, Iker Lecuona from the premier class and Xavi Vierge from Moto2, Honda’s new factory line up breathes youthful exuberance, determination and hunger, both in terms of results and the quest for knowledge. It’s an outlook Camier says drove the decision to recruit the pair.

“The reason for choosing Iker and Xavi was purely on performance and their potential for the future,” the former Superbike rider confirmed. “Just purely on their speed and that we believe in them to make a good job.

“Obviously it’s a big change [after two years racing the Fireblade in the experienced hands of Leon Haslam and Alvaro Bautista]. We understand that both Xavi and Iker don’t have experience in this championship and are new to everything, to the tyres, to the bike in general, so they have no reference of the bike before. We feel that with a fresh outlook on things, that they’re young, they’re easy to adapt, they can bring a bit of a fresh perspective to the situation. We think with the immediate speed they’ve shown, we’re really happy and we can expect some good improvement this year.

“From a performance point of view, in the first test I was super impressed with both riders to be honest. Just the speed straightaway was really impressive. Not only that, considering how young they are and the difference in experience, compared to the riders we had before, their feedback was also very impressive. So this is something for us which is really important. Moving forward, developing a new project, this is something that’s very sought after. They have to have the speed, for one, and they have