Weather: sunny, 28° C
Track: dry, 41° C

MUGGAS 5^th ON DAY ONE

Winston Ten Kate Honda's Karl Muggeridge was fifth fastest in the afternoon's first qualifiying session of round 10 of the World Superbike Championship here at Lausitzring in Germany.

After testing here in July Muggas mainly concentrated on the tyre selection in the morning and in the afternoon he tried a couple of new things out, with the result to go back tomorrow to some of the stuff that has been tested here before but he didn't had a chance yet to compare it today.

Muggas comments: "It's going ok, but there's still a lot of work to do. I feel quite comfortable with the bike, except of the few dramas we are having with the slipper clutch. We definetly have to improve the way the bike is handling especially on the brakes. So we haven't really ticked too many boxes yet, but we have improved a little bit comparing to the test and tomorrow we'll jump to completely a new bike with a different link and shock. I've tried to introduce some new techniques for myself this weekend, it's a bit hard as a lot of the corners are U turns here, but I'm feeling pretty confident."

Muggeridge's team-mate Chris Vermeulen took provisional front row after last weekend's double victory in Assen. Second fastest was Championship leader Troy Corser in front of Nori Haga and injured Regis Laconi's replacement Lorenzo Lanzi.
 

MUGGAS TAKES SECOND ROW

2^nd Qualifying
Winston Ten Kate rider Karl Muggeridge improved his yesterdays qualifying time by six tenths and will start this afternoon's Superpole lap from 3^rd position. All over the bike also improved on the race setting and it seems to work all into the right direction. There's a couple more things to try out in this afternoon's free practice and hopefully Muggas can keep his front row start for tomorrow's 23 lap race.

Karl comments: "We had a pretty good session this morning. The link we tried out worked a bit better and we also had the clutch problem fixed which helped on the breaking into the corners. At the end of the session we tried a different rear spring to get a bit more drive out of the corners which slightly improved it but not really enough. We still have to work a bit on the life span of the rear tyres, at the moment they are getting worked pretty hard."

Superpole:
Winston Ten Kate Honda's Karl Muggeridge took 6^th place after the Superpole lap and will start tomorrow's two 23 lap races from the second row of the grid between the two Yamaha Motor Italia riders Andrew Pitt and Nori Haga. 

Muggeridge's Superpole lap was a disappointing 0.357 seconds slower than his morning qualifying time of 1'39.567 which would have secured him the front row. However, he is still confident for tomorrow's races.

Muggas comments: "That was really dismal, I should have been on the front row after all the work we did and the performance of the weekend so far. I would have been happy with a fourth place, but can't change it now, I guess I gotta work on a good start tomorrow. Basically I was just too easy on the brakes on the Superpole lap, I was too careful as I didn't wanna make a mistake. Otherwise, everything is pretty good, the bike is working well and I think we have a good chance for a solid position in tomorrow's two races. I just hope that the weather forecast is wrong and the rain is gonna wait for a day. It's pretty slippery around here in the wet."

Ducati Xerox's replacement rider Lorenzo Lanzi took his first pole position by a whisker in front of Troy Corser, Chris Vermeulen and James Toseland.

Muggas secures 5^th place

Race 1:
Winston Ten Kate Honda rider, Karl Muggeridge, crashed unhurt at the beginning of lap three whilst running in a strong seventh place. Muggas go a reasonable start but got cut across before going into the first corner, which cost him a few positions.

On his second lap he found himself in another unlucky situation as somebody decided to nearly park his bike right in the corner in front of him. Muggeridge tried to do his best to hang on to the CBR but there was no chance to stop in time without loosing the front. However, we have a second race to go and with a good start his confident to be upfront.

Ronald ten Kate - team manager:
"That was another good ride from Chris to make it three wins in a row. He's doing the only thing he can do to keep the championship alive - that's winning races and taking points off Troy (Corser). It was only nine points this time so we'll be hoping for even more in race two. It was a shame for Karl this afternoon, who had been building up all weekend for a strong race. Unfortunately, his race ended with a block pass from another rider and there was nowhere for him to go. I'm sure he'll realise his true potential in the second outing."

Karl Muggeridge: "Not a very nice situation to be in, really. I got baulked going into the first turn and ended up about tenth. Then, going into lap two, someone pretty much stopped in the middle of the corner and that was it. I'm pretty disappointed because I felt comfortable and had no worries at all with the bike. I'll just have to hope for better luck in race two."

Christ Vermeulen won the first race here at Lausitzring after 20 laps and a red flag due to rain drops. He was able to close his gap down to 77 points to Championship leader Corser who finished in third place behind Yamaha's Nori Haga.

Race 2:
Winston Ten Kate Honda's Karl Muggeridge secured a good 5^th position in the second race of the day here at Lausitzring in Germany. Muggas got a much better start this time around with no hold ups what so ever. On lap 2 the Australian was in second place for a little while behind Nori Haga until the Italian youngster Lanzi barged his way past Muggas and a few seconds later past Haga.

Muggas started getting some handling problems on lap 9 and dropped a couple positions back but was able to bring this 5^th position safely home.

Ronald ten Kate - team manager: "Karl had one of his best rides of the season, so compliments to him. He's really getting the grip with the bike now and it would be great if he could help in the last two rounds by allowing Chris to take some more points from Troy."

Karl Muggeridge comments: "I could have done with finishing the first race to learn a bit more about the tyres and bike set-up. I definitely would have made some slight changes between the races and probably could have done with a little bit a softer front rubber. Otherwise the tyres weren't too bad, and most things worked pretty good. I've learnt a lot this weekend, and changing my riding style helped a fair bit for sure. I'm ready for Imola now and we got a good starting for the next round."