For Leon Camier, the statistics of the 2009 MCE British Superbike Championship make for some impressive reading.
In 26 races, the 23-year-old scored a record 19 race wins, nine pole positions, 18 fastest laps, not a single retirement (save for his Cadwell Park disqualification) and a winning margin of 136.5 points over runner-up James Ellison.
Almost a foregone conclusion since taking the lead of the standings from Sylvain Guintoli at Oulton Park, Ellison chased hard but would ultimately slip into a battle for second with Stuart Easton. Nonetheless, with 23 wins between them, they helped to ensure Yamaha were the big winners in the manufacturers' standings.
Easton was one of the year's standout performers, managing two race wins to take on and beat HM Plant so to finish as the top Honda rider. Josh Brookes might have posed a bigger threat had he not missed four rounds, but while his debut season in BSB was certainly controversial at times, eleven podiums was a decent return for the Australian.
Indeed, a flurry of good results in the latter half of the season helped Brookes make up ground in the battle for fourth place overall, surging past a gaggle of riders that had been disputing the position for much of the year.
In the end, the revised battle for fifth would see Ian Lowry emerge as the unlikely front runner after being rewarded for some superb consistency in his first season of Superbikes. Finishing inside the top six on seven occasions, Lowry surpassed Michael Laverty's efforts on the Relentless bike the previous season to come away as the top Superbike rookie – and Suzuki rider.
Kawasaki's return to form was also a big story of the 2009 season, with Simon Andrews and Julien Da Costa finishing just half a point apart in sixth and seventh. Andrews was the headline-maker with his run to the podium at Cadwell Park, although many will remember the Brookes incident as being the moment when he was robbed of a maiden win. Having been considered a surprise addition pre-season, Da Costa proved himself to be a shrewd choice for MSS Colchester as he brought the ZX-10R home more often than not to run his team-mate very close.
After a slow start to the year, John Laverty was also a star performer on the Buildbase Kawasaki machine, landing tenth in the standings after scoring four top five finishes in the final ten races.
It wasn't quite enough to get him ahead of Sylvain Guintoli, who recovered to eighth following a lengthy absence with injury, and Chris Walker, whose contention for fourth was ruined by reliability issues with his Motorpoint/Henderson Yamaha.
Elsewhere, Tommy Hill rose to 11th overall, despite only competing for half a season, ahead of the man he replaced at Hydrex Honda, Karl Harris, who slumped from an early high of third to finish the year in 14th – four positions lower than in 2008.
