British Superbike Championship leader Leon Camier can expect to have a fight on his hands with local favourite Stuart Easton in the sixth round at Knockhill after narrowly topping the timesheets in practice on Friday.

Riding the Airwaves Yamaha, Camier has won all but two of the races so far, and he powered into the meeting at the short, tight Fife circuit in confident mood.

Camier packed in 25 laps, the best of which came in 49.492 seconds, just enough to head off the determined challenges of Easton who closed his Hydrex Honda to within 0.078secs during the morning session, but rain in the afternoon ended the flying Scot's hopes of improving his time.

Easton said: "I like to think that I can do well here, and to win here for the first time in Superbikes would be the icing on the cake.

"There is not much in it in terms of lap times now, but it will get closer, and like the last round at Snetterton, this will be a big fight," added Easton who goes into the races 22 points adrift of James Ellison, who ran his Airwaves Yamaha fifth fastest overall, a third of a second down.

Glen Richards nosed his HM Plant Honda into third place with a fast lap of 49.668secs early in the second session before the rains intensified to be running a tenth up on his team-mate Josh Brookes, who after a run of three consecutive third placings is aiming for better things on his first visit to this circuit.

Simon Andrews maintained his recent run of good form by posting sixth best time, 49.830secs, aboard the MSS Colchester Kawasaki, running marginally faster than four times former runner-up in the series Chris Walker (Motorpoint Henderson Yamaha).

Ian Lowry put in a time of 50.075secs on the Relentless Suzuki to be eighth from John Laverty riding the Buildbase Kawasaki while Michael Rutter, despite a couple of tumbles, completed the top 10 on the Worx Crescent Suzuki.