MUGGAS HAPPY WITH IMPROVEMENTS

Winston Ten Kate Honda's Karl Muggeridge finished 14^th fastest in today's opening qualifying session of the 7^th round of the World Superbike Championship here at Brno in Czech Republic.

The provisional qualifying time was quite disappointing for the Ten Kate team and didn't really reflect the progress that was made on the race set-up. Muggas was pretty happy with his fifth fastest time on race tyres; considering it was his first time at the 5'403 meters Brno circuit.

The qualifying lap turned out to be a bit of a gamble as there were two Qs available for this event and they both had to be tried out over the weekend. So Muggas went for the new one, which turned out to be no improvement to the race tyre and unfortunately shuffled him back from 5^th to 14^th position.

Muggas comments: "In the morning free practice we discovered that the front settings are too hard and we were on the limit with going softer, so for the afternoon session we had two softer springs to try out as well as a different linkage. I'm quite happy with the steps we made today, the bike is starting to work a bit better on race settings and we definitely have improved o the parts of the track we were struggling this morning. We still have to work a on the front. It's a nice fast race track, I'm sure there will be some good racing on Sunday!"  
  

Weather: sunny, morning 27 ° C, afternoon 28° C
Track: dry, morning 46 ° C, afternoon 46° C

MUGGAS MISSES FRONT ROW BY A WHISKER

2^nd Qualifying
Winston Ten Kate rider Karl Muggeridge improved his yesterday's time by one second although he got hold up by traffic in the last sector of the track and will start this afternoon's Superpole from sixth position.

Karl comments:
"We tried a couple of things this morning but didn't really seem to get anywhere, we definetely have to improve the front of the bike, but got some ideas and another one hour session this afternoon before Superpole to work on that and find a solution. The qualifying lap wasn't too bad, I got hold up a bit in the last two splits but was still able to improve my time and postion."

Superpole:
It was a very close and fast Superpole session this afternoon at the 7^th round of the World Superbike Championship here at Brno in which Winston Ten Kate Honda's Karl Muggeridge missed out on the front row by only five thousands behind his team-mate Chris Vermeulen and 38 hundreds behind fellow Honda rider Max Neukirchner.

Nevertheless Muggas is happy with the progress that has been made on the CBR today and is looking forward to some good racing on the wide, hilly and fast track here at Brno.

Muggas comments:
"My goal was to be in the top five, but I would have preferred a front row start. The times were really tight; I made two tiny mistakes, so it was rather my own fault than getting beaten by the other guys. I'm pretty happy but, it's the fastest lap I did all weekend and the bike's getting better and better every time I get out there. The race set-up is not too bad, I'm hopping for two solid results tomorrow and get up there as high as I can".

Team Manager Ronald Ten Kate:
"I'm actually quite happy with the results of today's qualifying and Superpole sessions after all the hard work we've put in during the weekend so far. With neither rider having been here and other top teams having tested already, we've been playing the catch-up game for the first two days. To be honest, I think Karl deserved a front row start and was very close to getting one. We still have some work to do tonight because the lap times and data that we've gathered today will for sure help us to improve the bikes a little bit more in the warm-up tomorrow morning so that we can be even more competitive in the races."

Weather: sunny R1  26°C, R2  27°C
Track: dry, R1  40°C, R2 dry,  45°C

MUGGAS DISAPPOINTED BY GRIP PROBLEMS

Race 1:
Winston Ten Kate Honda rider, Karl Muggeridge, struggled with front end and rear grip in the first seventh round World Superbike championship race at Brno this afternoon, after being quickest with consistend lap times in the morning warm-up.

In cooler temperatures than yesterday's qualifying sessions that saw him start from fifth places on the grid, Muggas managed only an thirteenth place finish after 20 laps of the 5.4km Czech circuit. The race was won by championship leader, Troy Corser.

Ronald ten Kate - team manager:
"Karl was quickest in morning warm-up after a long run on his race tyres but got some strange front tyre wear in the race. It seemed to start quite early on so we'll have to look at the chassis and suspension data to see if anything has changed from warm-up to race. We could all see that Chris was struggling too so we may have to consider changing something quite dramatically for the second race this afternoon."

Muggas comments:
"Even from the first lap I had a couple of front end scares and after three laps I just didn't have any grip there, it was really tough to bring the girl home. We knew the front end would cause us some problems here because of the nature of the circuit but we haven't been here before so we've been trying to find our way since Friday. We made some changes to the front forks this morning in warm-up and I was quickest so it's a little mysterious what happened out there."

Race 2:
Winston Ten Kate rider Karl Muggeridge slipped back from second place in the early laps to take ninth position at the flag in the second race of round seven of the World Superbike Championship which had to be restarted after a few laps because of oil on the track. However the race got restarted as a complete new race with the normal starting positions.

Japanese rider Noriyuki Haga won the race with series leader Troy Corser in second Winston's Vermeulen in third.

Muggas comments:
"I got a lot much better start at the restart of the race and the front felt very different comparing to the first race, it was a complete different bike. I got past Abe on the second lap and saw Troy not that far in front of me so I tried to stay with him for as long as possible but soon realised that I didn't have the rear grip he had. To be honest mine dropped drastically off pretty soon after the first few laps, I just didn't have the drive out of the corners that the other guys did, so it was tough to stay with them and impossible to make a move on them. We were struggling all weekend with the front and spent so much time to get that working that we neglected the rear a bit, especially as we put the new link in that we are supposed to test this week in Lausitzring. So we didn't really have much experience with it, but I decided to take the gamble. I hope the two day test will give us some solutions, kind of getting tiered of dropping back after half race distance."

Ronald Ten Kate - Team Manager:
"We managed to get the front end of Karl's bike working a little better than in race one but we sacrificed a serious amount of rear end grip, meaning he couldn't hold on to his good start. We're heading from here and going straight to the Eurospeedway at Lausitzring to do some testing where we have a lot of new things to try".