Winston Ten Kate Honda's 2006 World Superbike championship
pairing of Karl Muggeridge and James Toseland today
completed a three-day test at the Losail circuit in Qatar
in conjunction with tyre supplier Pirelli.
The duo tested new components on the 2005 Honda CBR1000RR
Fireblade in readiness for the 2006 version of the machine
they will race in next season's World Superbike
championship, which opens in Qatar on 25 February.
Ronald ten Kate - team manager:
"It's been a very busy three days in which we have tested
all the material that we wanted to try - swingarms,
linkage systems, engine parts, ignition and injection
systems, front forks, etc. It took all of the first two
days to get through everything, after which we
concentrated on finding a good setting for the circuit.
Until about mid-afternoon, we were hampered by chatter
problems, which prevented either rider doing a very fast
lap. However, both Karl and James are happy with the
settings we've found and we're definitely in the right
ballpark. It's been a very successful test to determine
the direction that we head in next season because all the
work was done with the 2005 bike. From now on, we'll build
up the 2006 version of the Fireblade and concentrate on
what we have discovered here in Qatar. We have a few
options for our next pre-season test but the circuit here
is one of our favourites."
Karl Muggeridge - best lap: 2m00.09s
"Three days is a long test and I'm pretty tired. I spent
seven days back in Australia before coming here and had
five days of treatment on my back so I'm shaping up pretty
good physically again now. We came across this chatter
problem today for some reason and one or two other niggles
made things a little frustrating, but we definitely made
some progress over the first two days. We were going well
today, too, but the sun just drops out of the sky at
around 5.00pm so we just ran out of time really. We've
learned a heap about the bike which we'll be able to
transfer to the 2006 machine so I think it would be a
really good idea to come back here early next year to do
some back-to-back comparisons."
James Toseland - best lap: 2m00.8s
"The chatter problem led us up against a brick wall for a
while there but we found some new tyres from Pirelli that
definitely helped. Everything was promising over the first
two days as we got through the different parts we needed
to test. We were able to do consistently fast laps but not
one blistering one. To be honest, with the chatter
problem, I feel I should have been about three seconds off
the quick times rather than around one second, which is
where I ended up. The different things we had to test made
it a bit difficult to get into a rhythm and the chatter
problem was a little frustrating. We tested a hell of a
lot of stuff though, so we're all confident that we know
which way to go. It was good just to ride the bike for
three solid days in good weather - I did a lot of laps so
I'm feeling pretty tired after it all. But I'm looking
forward to getting the new bike, which is being launched
by Honda here this week, and finding a good base setting
for it."
