Leon Camier raced to his best finish of the season in the sixth round of the FIM World Superbike Championships in Portugal on Sunday.

The Ashford-born rider clinched fourth spot in the opening race at Portimao in the Algarve but couldn’t repeat the performance in race two, forced to retire on lap 12 with mechanical failure when battling for sixth place.

He recovered from a poor start first time out, after being forced off the track in an incident with fellow Briton Leon Haslam, eventually finishing nine seconds behind race winner, Italian Marco Melandri.

Camier said: “I got an OK start in the first race and made a bit of progress but as I went past Haslam on the inside and was well past him, he let the brake off in the turn and punted into me.

“I lost some time and dropped back and had the job of trying to catch-up and get through the field, so from 15th to fourth is a pretty good result. The bike felt good. I felt like I could pass really well and the speed of my FIXI Crescent Suzuki has definitely improved.

“I had an electronics problem at the start of the second race and the bike didn’t pull away as it should. I made up a few places up but didn’t feel quite as strong as I did in the first race. I kept pushing and was getting in a good rhythm when a problem with the bike didn’t allow me to continue.

The action resumes at Imola in Italy in three weeks’ time.